


Agents of HERO: Transform

by BairnSidhe



Series: Bodies-verse [20]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Killgrave is Killgrave, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Moral injury, Other, Vague yet Menacing Government Agencies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:41:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 46,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26557531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BairnSidhe/pseuds/BairnSidhe
Summary: The Agents of HERO defended the world, but what will they become as they grow into a family?
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Skye | Daisy Johnson
Series: Bodies-verse [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/569206
Comments: 67
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ATTENTION: As a part of the ongoing project of the Director's Cut Edition of the Bodies-Verse, the work formerly known as Agents of HERO will be split into smaller, more manageable stories. There will be no real content edits in this update, but this will be the work with further updates to content, and the previous work will be marked complete.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between crisis points, power will shift, balance, and find a new norm. This isn't always comfortable for those involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I am restarting this, and thus we lose the benefit of comments/kudos on the previous work, I want to thank everyone who's read this series, or who will read this series.

Vladimir _hated_ the Las Vegas Avtoritet. Veronika Morozova was the worst sort of cold fish, utterly emotionless, lacking in empathy, overburdened with her own importance, and deadly enough letting her know he thought that would be a painful way to test the limits of the generous medical care offered by SHIELD. So far, her none-too-gentle ‘education’ had included stints working to clean out the back of a butcher’s shop, carrying packages like some Shestyorka, and lastly an hour serving dinner in the local soup kitchen. Tolya survived her demeaning orders with his usual calm quiet, but Vladimir had a hard time holding his tongue against the abuse.

“Alright, looks like the last have just about wrapped up,” she said, eyeing the mostly empty tables. “We wash down the place, then you two can go.”

“Yes, Ms. Morozova,” Tolya said mildly, turning towards the closet full of cleaners. The anger built in Vladimir and he could not hold it back.

“Fuck you, suka!” he snapped. “Tolya, stop, what are you doing? We do not bow like this. Not to the government, not to her. What happened to your spine?”

“This is exactly problem that got us both killed,” Tolya snapped back. “You always have to be biggest dog in junkyard, and piss on everybody else to show you’re in charge. Some people _like_ being alive, Vovochka.”

“And what makes you think you’re living right now, Anatoly?” Morozova asked, her voice bland and her face giving no hint what lurked behind her pale, colorless features. The brothers turned to stare at her. “Honestly, of the two of you, at least Vladimir is thinking what another might want. I mean he’s doing it in entirely the wrong way, but he’s much closer to ready to be left unattended. You’ve been swallowing everything I give you with no questions, and it has me worried. I can’t hand the city to a dead man.”

“You wanted me to yell at you?” Vladimir asked. Honestly, women made no sense.

“I wanted you two to question me,” she corrected, her face finally cracking into something approaching an expression, albeit one that reminded him of a particularly arrogant school teacher. “You’re not low level members of our family. You did, in fact, run our operations in this city for quite some time, and hopefully can do so again. What I’m here to do is make sure when you do take that place, you don’t immediately die again, because that would be a waste of the many resources spent keeping you in power here. You _will_ become good Pakhans. Gregori and Tatiana specifically sent _me_ , not just at my aunt’s request, to make sure that happens.”

“And why you?” Vladimir spat, but already his mind was trying to answer his own question. Why her? Why a woman? Why an Avtoritet? Why not one of the male Pakhans?

“The world has changed,” Morozova sighed, and her icy tension faded. She reached for a canister of cleaning wipes and gestured to the dining room, now empty of the homeless. They grabbed their own supplies and followed her. “In two thousand and eleven, I would not have been sent to pull your heads from your rears. I was capable of it, and trusted to do so in Las Vegas, but I would not have been sent, because it would be an insult to you. Because you would behave as you have, and I would shoot you, as I do most men who imply I’m not good at my job, and we’d have a war between cities to deal with. I’m not a good enemy to have, but I didn’t have the allies then I do now.”

“And what changed?” Tolya asked, looking thoughtful. Morozova shot him a look like he was touched in the head.

“The sky above New York split open and shat aliens,” she said, dry as her home city. “Superheroes happened. The Avengers change… everything. When mortal men can command that kind of power, can turn back _invasions_ , they’re not really mortal men anymore. They’re gods, or monsters, or heroes, or miracles. The fate of the world hinges on their whims, and the old ways must change to survive them. We need to be a new kind of organization.”

“And you’re suited to make us that,” Vladimir sneered, then caught up to his own thought. “Why? What do you do that’s different?”

“Good, you’ve got it!” Morozova crowed, smiling at him for the first time, and… wow. Vladimir suddenly thought he understood the fanatic loyalty he’d heard her men had for her. That was like the sun smiling, too bright, too hot, dangerous and unavoidably tempting. “I build connections. I structure our business around what those connections want and need, so when it’s important, when it matters, they trust me. I have a very good working relationship with Vegas PD, with the local shelters, with the churches. If I ask about one of my women going missing, I can get answers. What answer would you have gotten about one of your men, if you needed to track them down? What about a woman? People were afraid of you, and while that works when we’re the scariest thing in the night, it doesn’t work anymore.”

Tolya hummed. “We were selected because of Fisk,” he concluded. Vladimir gaped at him, but started to see the path his brother took.

“We made a deal with him. Then with the Devil and his sister,” Vladimir said slowly, realizing the truth. “We made deals with people not Russian. We _can_ make deals. We’ve already shown we can and will. Gregori needs that, now.”

“Indeed,” Morozova said softly. “And one such deal you made was to work with this community instead of against it. So start mopping, this place should be cleaner than a surgeon’s suite. If I couldn’t have the CSI teams sweep it and find nothing, it needs to be redone.”

<^>

Natasha decided she loved Baba Osinova’s home. After the Ranskahovs were released from SHIELD medical, they’d used the old woman’s offer of neutral territory quite liberally, thanks to all the transitions of power that needed to happen. Power vacuums were nobody’s friend, and Fisk’s removal meant someone needed to step up into the Kingpin’s place.

Which was why they were there, but not why Natasha loved it. It was some combination of the bitter tea cut with sour-sweet jam, the perpetual smell of cookies, and the fact that Trip had a running fight with the over plush sofa. That, and the enjoyable scowls Vladimir and Dyadya Matvey made at each other. She pulled at the button camera on her leather jacket to catch a still of them facing off in an entirely one-sided staring match.

“Nika, when are we going to spray them with water?” she asked her sister, who was sipping tea gently from beside the slowly vanishing form of Trip. “It’s getting ridiculous.”

“We’re not,” Nika said primly. “This is not lesson, this is test. If Vladimir cannot pass it on his own….” She shrugged and passed Anatoly her tea cup.

“I wish you would have let me help,” the man said, but took the cup with no protest. “We work _together_.”

“And that’s a problem,” Natasha told him. “You also have to work apart. I trust my partner, but I can do a job alone. So can he. We do so fairly regularly, to keep the skill. I’ll go with you to get more tea.”

She plucked Trip’s cup from his hands and stood up, conveniently getting another picture of his discomfort. In the kitchen, she put the cups on the counter, and grinned at the crime lord who came in behind her.

“Has he figured it out yet?”

“No, I don’t think so. He’s not as observant as I am, and it took me quite a while to notice. He hides it very well.”

“Admittedly, I don’t know very many in his situation, but the other is equally capable. Well, there are a few more with partial, but Nick got his later in life, as an adult, and Zoe is less active than most of our family’s children. She lets herself be led a lot, if the surroundings are new.”

They stopped their conversation as Vladimir let out a groan.

“I give up, I cannot beat you at this. Your eyes are covered by the glass of the mask, and I am not good enough at trusting you will be honest.”

“That’s fair, I don’t like you,” Matt said evenly. “You know I don’t like you, and you don’t like me either. Trust isn’t easy.”

“Trust also goes both ways,” Natasha mumbled, and Matt shifted his shoulders slightly in annoyance.

“Trust is earned by sharing trust,” Vladimir said, echoing her statement. “You know me, you’ve had every chance to see all of me you want, while I was helpless in your hospital. I have yet to see your face without a mask. I won’t ask a name, you earned privacy, but I would like to even the score here.”

Matt sighed. “Actually, we’re even on that already.”

Natasha beamed at him and pulled out her phone to record the touching moment.

“Put that away, Natasha, you’re making this harder than it needs to be!” Nika snapped, and Nat suppressed a blush as she obeyed. She forgot Matt wasn’t like her more open family, he wasn’t out of the closet yet. Or was that out of the cowl? She needed to find a term for it.

Matt glanced at her with an ear, and pulled his helmet off, smoothing chestnut hair with shaking hands still in their combat gloves. His face pulled up, and Vladimir dropped his jaw.

“Like I was saying,” Matt said. “I haven’t seen your face either. Honestly, I don’t want to, that involves touching, and I’d feel awkward about it.”

Natasha giggled and pulled out a bill to pass to Anatoly. He passed her one of his own in return.

“What was that about?” the two men they’d bet on snapped in unison.

“Who was going to unbend first,” Natasha said.

“If Vladimir was going to notice the Devil is blind,” Anatoly said.

“Pass them over,” Nika ordered. “You both lost the bet with me about Vladimir passing. Good job.”

Vladimir looked shocked, then scowled at his brother. “You bet _against_ me?”

“Twice,” Natasha informed him.

Anatoly shrugged and Baba Osinova cleared her throat. The two looked at her, then each other, then left to finish their ‘talk’ outside the safe protections of the Baba’s home.

<^>

Skye was napping on the Bus when a firm hand shook her shoulder. She blinked up at May and sluggishly flashed a questioning hand sign.

“No, it’s not an emergency. I wanted to warn you, you’re on a new assignment as of landing in New York. Someone’s been using mind control, allegedly.”

Skye narrowed her eyes and sat up. “Fuck. That. Noise.”

“Language,” May chided with a smile. “Coulson’s been ordered back to a previous case that reopened itself, but since you have assets in the city, you’re going to be cultivating ties through them to find and contain the rogue telepath. His name’s Kilgrave, he contacted a radio station not too long ago confirming his existence. Trip has the file.”

“So I’m starting with the station,” Skye agreed, then finally realized something about what May had said. “Where will you be?”

“With Coulson. You’ll have Trip as backup, as well as Daredevil and your family. This is entirely a HERO mission, not SHIELD, so you can improvise.”

“Wait, May… it sounds like I’d be _in charge_.”

“You will be. We land in ten minutes, get packed, I’ll be taking the Bus with me.”

Skye jolted, falling out of her bunk as May left abruptly. “What?! May, I’m not in charge! MAY!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Avtoritet: the second in command of the Russian mob in a city.  
> Shestyorka: a messenger or errand boy, the lowest rank in the Russian mob.  
> Suka: bitch  
> Pakhan: the first in command of the Russian mob in a city.  
> Dyadya: Uncle
> 
> Nicknames:  
> Tolya: Anatoly  
> Vovochka, Volodya, Vova: Vladimir (from most to least diminutive, because Tolya is sassy to his brother.)  
> Matvey: Mathew  
> Nika: Veronika
> 
> Notes:  
> The head of the Bratva in Bodies-Verse is Gregori, aided by his wife Tatiana. They're forward thinking sorts, which is how they're surviving as an organization in a world where individuals can and do wage war on entire criminal organizations. They began that transition in 2008 after Tony built Iron Man, but the work became more immediate after the Battle of New York.
> 
> Baba Osinova is a Baba Yaga, a woman of Russian decent with special powers who acts as a mediator for large or complex problems. Her home is an enforced truce zone, no violence allowed.
> 
> The issue Nat and Tolya are discussing is eyesight. Nat has two totally blinded people in her family, Matt and Lava (Loki's adopted daughter) and two with eyesight impairment, Nick Fury and Zoe Keener (who has no depth perception due to her eyes both canting to one side.) Matt, Lava, and Nick got theirs later in life by injury, but Zoe was born with it.
> 
> The phrase "out of the closet" is used for queer folks who are open about their queerness with others. Natasha is now contemplating the need for something to cover people who have superhero identities who are open about that, since it becomes relevant in the existence of Matt, who isn't 'out'. Previously, the heroes she's interacted with are either openly doing what they do and letting the world see it, or agents who operate secretly because it's their job.
> 
> Natasha bet against Matt, placing a bet with Anatoly that Vladimir would admit he had a problem trusting first. Tolya bet against Vladimir twice, once with Nat that Vladimir would need to be told Matt is blind, once with Nika that his brother would fair to ask for what he needed (and therefore pass the test).
> 
> Skye has opinions about violation of autonomy. Kilgrave is going to be Very Surprised about how strong the resistance he's facing is.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "You shot him." “Non fatal, he’s in for a twelve hour nap and a hangover I don’t envy."


	2. AKA It's Called Whiskey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hunt is on for a mind-controller.

Leaving the precinct after another meeting with a prospective client Brett called them about, Matt blew a hard breath out his nose. He'd spent hours meeting with the client, an immigrant having a hard time understanding permits for street vendors, and the smell of the precinct was embedded in his face. The meeting itself might not have been for a drunk and disorderly charge, but given that it was Saint Patrick’s Day and Hell’s Kitchen was known for its Irish population, there were more than a few wasted tourists giving the place a distinct and unpleasant smell. A few quick bursts of air cleared his nose, and Matt followed the smell of proper corned beef to a small cafe he hadn’t tried before. He was in line to order when his cell phone vibrated. He considered not answering, anyone he normally spoke to would have triggered the voice of his phone’s user interface. A vibration meant it was an unregistered number. He didn’t want to deal with telemarketers, he wanted lunch.

Of course, it was also possible it was SHIELD, and he didn’t want to not answer if it were about his sister.

“Hello, Mat Murdock speaking.”

“Hi Matt, I’m back in town,” his sister said. Matt stepped out of line to take the call. “And I’m kinda freaking out. May put me in charge of a mission. Like, on my own in charge.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Agent Triplett demanded from several yards away. Matt laughed as his sister blew a raspberry at her partner.

“Skye, you are the least alone person in this city,” Matt told her firmly. “If you need me, for _anything,_ you call me and tell me where. You’ve got loads of people who would say the same.”

“But I’m not supposed to be in charge!” she wailed. Matt chuckled at her and rolled his eyes.

“You’ve got this, Skye. May wouldn’t drop you into something you couldn’t handle. I need to finish getting lunch so I can go back to the office and give Foggy the information on a new client. Do you want me to ask him to pick Thomas up from school?”

The school in question was the Student Lounge in Avengers Tower, where Thomas met with his tutors to try to bring neglected areas back up to his grade level. While lots of students went there both before and after their own schools, only a few were exclusively taught there, mostly kids who needed help reintegrating after something bad. Technically, the Lounge was open all day and all night, but Matt and Skye were trying to give him as much normal as they could. If Skye needed Matt right away, Foggy would pick him up and watch him for the night, since someone needed to be on hand if anything triggered a nightmare. If worse came to worst, Thomas could also ask Jarvis to take him up to the Avenger’s floors where multiple adults would promptly offer all the parenting any kid might want.

“No, I’ll be okay. Trip and I are headed out to find the radio host a potential telepath threatened and get her to safety. I’ll call if I need to miss dinner.”

“Try not to, Thomas misses you.”

“I miss you guys too.”

<^>

Skye had finished with the radio manager and gotten the addresses of both Trish Walker and Jerri Hogarth, both of whom had put themselves firmly on Kilgrave’s potential enemies list. Hogarth by denying he existed or had powers, and Walker by directly insulting him. Knowing what Matt had said about Hogarth, she sent Trip to the lawyer. Skye didn’t want to end up shutting down manipulative flirting. It would be annoying.

That left Skye with Trish Walker, aka ‘It’s Patsy’, aka ‘I Want Your Cray Cray girl’, aka a celebrity. Which meant she could either be totally chill or a complete psycho since that’s what the media said about literally every celebrity.

Skye reflected in the elevator it was a good thing she’d had time to get used to Tony and Pepper, and the casual way those two dealt with famous friends. Otherwise this could have been awkward.

As she prepared to knock on the door, Skye heard a thump and noticed the slightly open door had several heavy duty security locks on the frame. Walker either had a case of paranoia, or someone really was out to get her. Given the thump, Skye felt all right about drawing her ICER and going in warm. Her fingers itched with the force she was applying to keeping them safely straight and away from the trigger, but in a civilian environment it was necessary. Trigger discipline saved lives.

“I have to kill her,” a cop was saying, voice heavy and slurred.

“Not gonna happen,” shot back a rough looking woman with eyes about like Bucky’s after a bad mission.

Skye made a choice, aimed, put her finger on the trigger, and pulled.

“What the fuck!” the woman shouted as the cop went down like a sack of bricks. Skye released the trigger and put her hands up, fingers splayed on either side of the pistol in her hand, displaying her inability to shoot.

“It’s okay, I’m with…” she bit it off, remembering this wasn’t a SHIELD mission, it was completely HERO, completely secret. “I’m with the good guys.”

“Bull _shit_ ,” the woman spat, her posture tense and protective as she stood over Walker like a mama tiger.

“I’m gonna put my gun away now. My name is Skye, by the way, what’s yours?”

“Jess?” Walker mumbled from the floor, coughing.

“Shh, Trish, it’s going to be okay.” The woman, Jess, switched modes so fast Skye was sort of impressed. Skye holstered her gun and moved to check the cop. His badge was legit, and she frowned.

“Actual cop. Damn it.”

“What’s the matter,” Jess asked. Skye looked at her cradling Walker and decided she could probably trust them.

“He’s a cop, a real one. I thought we got all the dirty cops last month.”

“There’s always someone who can be bought,” Jess said wryly, “but it isn’t his fault. Kilgrave sent him, and there’s no fighting that.”

“So the telepath is real?”

Skye flinched back from the snarl on Jess’s face. That pain was familiar. Skye understood it in ways that can only happen after you hold a family member as they lose themselves in a past too awful to name. She felt the instinct to reach out, to offer comfort like she would to Nat or Bucky or Loki or Clint. Thomas so far hadn’t had to cope with his demon’s memories, and the Black Sky was fairly self contained, but she’d been readying for the day she had to hold her son for that too.

“I’m sorry,” she said, knowing the words were too small but too intrusive. Walker had sat up and was touching Jess like contact kept the world spinning. “Mind control blows. I’ll get this guy the right counseling when he wakes up, promise.”

“You _shot him_ ,” Jess pointed out. Skye laughed and flipped up her jacket to show the glow of blue that came off the clear ammo chamber of the ICER.

“Non fatal, he’s in for a twelve hour nap and a hangover I don’t envy. I’ll have to call in a favor to get containment, but Jemma should be able to figure out what’s going on here. Hopefully we can get him help.”

Jess looked at her warily, then stuck a hand out. “Name’s Jones. Jessica Jones. If you’re going after Kilgrave, I want in.”

<^>

Jessica bit her lip as Skye ripped through Simpson’s life with a speed and ruthlessness that made her nervous. Not that digging through private files and secrets was anything strange to her, she was a goddamn private eye. No, it was the complete lack of anything resembling hesitation and the god-like computer skills that caught funny in her chest.

“Isn’t this… illegal?” she finally asked. Skye grabbed the fancy organic soda Trish had set out and slugged it back before answering.

“Yes, entirely. If you go to the cops right now the odds are good you can plea out and I’ll be in a very secure prison before dinner.” The girl turned perceptive eyes on Jessica. “If you want to do this alone, feel free to grab a phone and cover your ass. I may run, but I won’t fight you on it.”

Jessica thought a minute. She could get out of this. She could drop it, walk away. Maybe leave New York, get a new identity. Run away. She’d done it before, diving deep into dark corners and booze and a shitty apartment to escape a life she was scared of. To escape a monster.

To leave a monster free.

“No. I’m taking Kilgrave down for good this time.”

“Well, luckily for you, NYPD has geotrackers in their badges, and Officer Simpson here made exactly one unusual stop off his beat in the last day. High end condo, Upper East Side, and he turned off his body cam right before going there. Wanna see what he saw right before that?”

No. Jessica did _not_ want to see that. “Yeah, hit me with it.”

Him. Even with the evidence, even with the phone call, the unmistakable taint on the soul of Hope Shlottman, Jessica hadn’t wanted to believe it. It had seemed less than real, a nightmare or a sick prank or a bad horror movie. But that face… Kilgrave was still alive.

“Are you okay?”

Jessica didn’t answer, she was busy reciting street names and trying not to jump through Trish’s ceiling.

“No, she’s not,” Trish said softly, the rough waver snapping Jessica’s fear.

“Fuck you, Trish.”

Skye paused, pointed at each of them, and made a dumb little o with her mouth. “I get it. You guys are siblings. Sorry, that wasn’t in the file, I thought you were dating.”

“EW!” the two sisters gagged in unison.

“Gross! No,” Jessica said, twisting her face at that. “I’m super straight. Or was. Now I’m basically just attracted to whiskey.”

“Very funny,” Trish shot back. “Alcoholism isn’t an orientation.”

Jessica shrugged with a knowing look and Skye laughed.

“Come on you two, we have a bad guy to catch, but I need to drop Officer Renfield here with someone who can take care of him until the mojo wears off. I’ll need your help carrying him, he’s pretty beefy.”

Jessica considered telling her she could bench Simpson without breaking a sweat, but it seemed like a good idea to keep that quiet for now. A silent conversation with Trish brought agreement. Trish helped lift the Officer, and Jess grabbed their bags and the door.

It was time to shut Kilgrave down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> ICER: knock-out gun.  
> Geotrackers: devices that register location based off GPS coordinates.  
> Renfield: The servant of Dracula in Bram Stoker's book. He was constantly mind controlled by the vampire he worked for.
> 
> Notes:  
> For clarity sake, Brett wasn't calling Matt to represent someone who'd been arrested (as he did with Karen) but to assist someone who showed up at the precinct asking questions the police weren't equipped to answer. It was a much simpler case than they usually take, and so Matt just borrowed a room at the station to help work it out.
> 
> Saint Patrick's Day is a holiday in March on the Catholic calendar. It's associated with Ireland, and consequently (thanks stereotypes) many people, even non-Catholics, use it as an excuse to get wasted on green-dyed beer.
> 
> Valkyrie and I did the math once, there's something like 35 adults who spend most of their time with New York as a base in the Family. Skye isn't just Not Alone, she can summon an army if she chooses. Of course the point of the exercise is that Skye needs to do this with as few of those people as she needs, to prove her adaptability, but there's a huge safety net here.
> 
> The Student Lounge in the Tower was started by Tony after the Battle of New York when he discovered kids hanging out around his building for the wi-fi to finish school work. It gives them a safe, warm, and fully-equipped place to do school work after classes let out. During the day, tutors come in to give personal lessons to kids who had their schooling disrupted by super-villainy. Thomas, Lava, and several other children rescued after the events of Bodies of Code all attend a "school" of tutors together there.
> 
> Jerri Hogarth is a lesbian in the MCU, and she's not shy about using her sexuality to make problems go away.
> 
> Trish Walker is currently a radio host for the show "Trish Talk" but had a child star show "It's Patsy" and a sexy club single "I Want Your Cray Cray" thanks to her manipulative stage-door-mom mother.
> 
> Although I know some people ship them romantically, in my canon Trish and Jess treat each other like actual sisters and the idea of dating or sex between them is gross. Ditto Skye and Matt, and Skye and Bucky. Adoptive family is still family and I am 100% squicked by incest.
> 
> Trish Walker has a canon problem with substance abuse that she's tried to get treated repeatedly. Her celebrity lifestyle makes staying clean hard, since there's easy access and certain addictions like booze and cigarettes are normalized. Jessica, on the other hand, has a high metabolism from her powers that changes her dosages on medications (she has to take about twice as much to get the same result, and it doesn't last as long) and has been using alcohol to self-medicate her PTSD and depression. They both know that's not smart, but Jessica is fatalistic about getting effective non-alcoholic treatment, and Trish is just scared her sister will end up like she is. There are some other factors in addiction, like genetics, and Jess can get clean if given support that does work with her body's needs.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "Don't feed the Russians. They will imprint on you. Like ducks."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans never survive the first encounter with the enemy. Or sometimes with allies.

Skye didn’t go straight to the apartment they suspected. Neither did she go to SHIELD’s New York headquarters, although they undoubtedly had things for just this situation. She also didn’t go to the Tower, however tempting that was.

Instead, she pulled the van up in front of a defunct veterinary clinic.

“Why are we here?” Jessica asked. Skye smiled at her and went inside. Some things were easier to show than tell.

“Hey, you get my call?” Skye asked as she stepped up to the clean but empty front desk.

“You people are crazy,” Claire said by way of an answer. She came out in a white jacket that looked like a lab coat and Bucky’s assassin rig had a baby. Her hair was pulled back high and tight under a matching cloth cap and her face was covered in a surgical mask Skye recognized as a prototype Tony and Bruce had been working on. It had a filtration system to keep it from getting sweaty or gross during extended wear, and sealed around the edges like Bucky’s soldier mask. “And I hate the costume. It’s stupid.”

“You wanted to keep a separate civilian identity,” Skye pointed out as she helped Claire roll a gurney out to the van. “At least it doesn’t have a cape.”

“A cape might be cool,” Claire admitted. Jessica helped them heave Officer Simpson onto the gurney. “Who’s this?”

“A concerned citizen. Who are you? Why aren’t we at a hospital or something?”

“Yeah, a brainwashed cop at a civilian hospital, that sounds _fantastic_ ,” Claire shot back. “How much backup am I getting, Barnes?”

“I texted Tolya on the way over, he freed up Sacha and one of the Ivans. They’ll be guarding the area in general, and if you need Trip or either of my brothers, you have the numbers. Also, I know Sacha looks like a starving puppy, but _don't_ feed the Russians. They will imprint on you. Like ducks.”

“Great,” Claire said with an eye roll. “Look, Miss Concerned Citizen, take him back there, room on the right, I need to talk to my crazy friend here.”

Jessica shrugged and took Officer Simpson, and Skye met Claire’s look. “Claire….”

“Don’t, I get it. You’re scared and you’re overcompensating. Your first time in charge is always terrifying. But you need to unclench, or you’re going to sprain something.”

Skye broke out in laughter. Claire’s smile told her that was the right reaction. “Is that your considered medical advice, Nurse?”

“It is. Now go. Get the bastard.”

The apartment was in a nice neighborhood. Fancy, quiet, discrete. Skye smiled grimly as she knocked on the door. People bought places like this thinking it made them safe. Thinking nothing could climb the walls of their ivory towers and steel citadels. And here she was, storming the castle to pull a monster from the throne.

“Who is it?” someone behind the door asked.

“Simpson asked me to come.”

“Where is he?”

Skye shrugged for the benefit of the peephole, although she couldn’t see that the light through it had changed. She heard a muffled shout on the other side of the door and fought down her urge to reach for a gun. There was a thump, a crash like breaking glass, and then she heard someone scream Jessica’s name.

Pushing off the last of the mantle of lawfulness that came with the SHIELD badge she’s left clipped to her van’s sun visor, Skye took a step back, drew her ankle piece, and shot the lock out. Pushing in, she saw the likely owner of the place kneeling by a crashed lunch tray, trying to neaten it, as Jessica ran towards a slim man in a dark suit. There was something in her hand, maybe a knife?

“Jones, stop!” Skye took a step forward and cursed the fact she couldn’t shoot. There were too many civilians, and she’d drawn a real gun, not an ICER, to deal with the door. Jessica herself wasn’t able to get the weapon she held into Kilgrave, or who Skye assumed was Kilgrave, because guards who did not look like professionals kept diving into her way. The woman batted them away with a precise gentleness Skye knew all too well. It was the same motion Bucky used with his left arm, that Thor and Loki used, that Mike Peterson used. Jessica was trying not to kill anyone. Which meant Jessica easily could kill someone.

“Skye, get the fuck out of here,” the woman in question growled as Skye realized her newest recruit had powers.

“Oh, so you like her?” Kilgrave asked as Jessica finally pinned him to a wall. “Skye, be a love and jump off the balcony.”

<^>

Jessica’s heart stuttered. So far, she’d thought Kilgrave was simply caught off his guard, unable to form an order to give her, and she’d barreled forward trying to reach him with the syringe before he figured out to say stop. Then, Skye had gotten in the way, and she had a choice to make.

“This is not over,” she hissed, and dropped the needle to run at the younger woman. She felt the blood rushing to her ears in a steady hum-thrum that drowned out fear or anger or loss. Skye, being fairly fit and quick, had already climbed onto the ledge of the balcony when Jessica got to her. She relaxed her hands, let the woman bend her knees and start the jump, then grabbed her and finished the follow through. They landed hard in a pile of garbage bags and Skye promptly vomited.

“It’s okay, you jumped, you did what he said, you can rest now,” Jessica reassured her.

“I need all the showers. All of them.” Skye shuddered. “Can you drive me home, I don’t think I can see straight.”

“No, I don’t drive.” Jessica looked at the street. “We need to get out of here, he could be sending people down after us.”

“I’ll call us a ride, keep me from waking into anything,” Skye ordered, and pulled her phone out. She leaned pretty heavily on Jessica, but frankly, a sprained ankle would be ludicrously lucky compared to what Kilgrave could dish out.

They limped along to a small cafe, where Jessica left Skye at a table and went to wash her face. Staring in the mirror, Jessica fought down her demons with a firm glare and recited street names. She felt the panic peak, then fall away, as she released the sink with a small shower of ceramic glaze. She washed her hands and went to sit. Skye had ordered drinks, two coffees and a small tray of creamers and sugar packets. It was cute.

“What’s this crap?”

“We need to get our blood sugar back up,” Skye said over the rim of her cup. “Warmth is soothing, relaxing, and can help with circulation. Cream has fat, which both boosts energy in the short term, and protects the nervous system from shock, in the long term. Also, I know you burned more calories than I did back there, and I want to thank you for saving my life.”

“It was nothing, just forget about it.” Jessica looked at her cup. “You don’t happen to have whiskey on you?”

Skye shook her head. “Probably not a good idea right now anyway. Trust me, you don’t want to mix an after fight crash with the spins.”

Typical. Jessica dosed the coffee with five packs of sugar from the fancy brown packets, and added enough cream to turn the liquid a pale amber.

“So what were you trying to stab him with anyway?”

Jessica shot her head up. “None of your damn business.”

“I almost got killed trying to keep you from murdering someone. I feel it might be just a little, tiny bit my business.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“No, you went off the reservation and broke into someone’s house. We had a plan, and you ignored it.”

“It was a shitty plan, okay!” Jessica set her cup down with a clink that drew glances from the other patrons. She glared at them and hunched over the cup. “If you step foot in the same room as Kilgrave, he can control you. He _did_ control you. There’s no lying to him if he orders you to be honest, there’s no fighting back from inside the control. It’s not like the shit that came out in the Squidgate papers, all hypnosis and electric shocks, it’s not cold and mechanical. You want to do what he says, you have to. He tells you to be happy about doing something and you are. He can make you _want_ him to hurt you.”

“I remember,” Skye said softly. Jessica looked down and away. She’d forgotten this wasn’t like talking to Trish, who meant well but couldn’t understand.

“So you know it was a shitty plan.”

“Now, yes. But you had every chance to tell me it was a shitty plan, and suggest a new one. I froze because I didn’t know what you were doing, because I was tracking new variables. I want to know what I’m working with. I want to be treated like I have half a brain and the ethics to listen to other people’s experience. I think I deserve that much.”

Jessica paused, thinking about it. Fortunately, she didn’t have to answer, since a guy in a suit came in and started fussing over Skye.

<^>

“Thanks for the ride, Foggy,” Skye said again. She was pretty sure she’d said it three times now, but for some reason she couldn’t stop saying it. She blamed the leftover influence of Kilgrave, clearly the man was more insidious than she imagined. Her cheeks burned and she glanced to the back seat where Jessica was curled in a petulant ball.

“Not a problem, besides, Matt wanted me to make sure you made it home for dinner. Thomas has been missing you.”

Skye felt the sinking feeling from earlier return. “I didn’t mean to leave him that long. It was supposed to be a short mission, but then we found out Coulson had his memories altered… it got complicated.”

“Thomas is your kid?” Jessica asked, uncurling just a little.

“Yeah, Matt and I adopted him. Well, we got emergency custody as fast-tracked foster parents and then started the adoption process.”

“Matt’s you, what, husband?”

“Nope. Brother. We grew up in the same orphanage, and when we found Thomas… couldn’t let that happen to him.”

Jessica went really quiet. Foggy reached over and gave Skye’s arm a little squeeze, silent reassurance that no matter what Jessica thought, he was there for the cobbled together Murdock family.

Matt’s apartment was the same as she’d left it. Stepping inside gave her a rush of relief as the soft and subtle dampening of thick carpet and the light blocking drapes she’d bought cut away the city sounds.

“Okaa-san!” Skye braced just in time as she was tackled on the threshold of the living room by a flying ten year old. “Did you have fun hunting oni? How did you catch them? I learned how to do cartwheels, watch!”

Skye laughed as she watched her son do a rickety cartwheel that morphed into a back handspring at the end as his eyes went more serious for just a moment. “Careful, buddy, remember we don’t injure ourselves if we can help it.”

The Black Skye nodded at her as he shifted backwards. “Who’s this?” Thomas asked, looking past her at Jessica. “Are we keeping her?”

Jessica pulled a strange face as Foggy guided her to the sofa. “Buddy, we’ve had the talk about adoption,” he chided, ducking his head to let Skye know he had this, so she could shower. “Just because your Aunt Darcy forcibly adopts people doesn’t mean everyone is okay with that. Miss Jessica’s a grown up, she can choose who keeps her and who’s just a friend.”

“Do you wanna be my friend?” Skye heard Thomas ask, but the door to the bathroom closed behind her before he got an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Off the reservation: spy speak for not following the plan.  
> Okaa-san: Mom  
> Oni: demons, literally. Thomas-speak for supervillains.
> 
> Translations:  
> Off the reservation: spy speak for not following the plan.  
> Okaa-san: Mom  
> Oni: demons, literally. Thomas-speak for supervillains.
> 
> Notes:  
> Claire is developing her super-persona of Night Nurse. Her outfit is currently evolving, but will end up looking like [this](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a9VwdwWHtkw/VTNUUc5AJZI/AAAAAAAAHSs/IFaXrGiSFp4/s1600/720294-nightnurse%2B-%2BCopy%2B-%2BCopy.jpg) except with scrub pants, flat shoes, a surgical mask, and a hat of [this](https://www.comicpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/comic-pow-night-nurse-dd-58-2.png) design.
> 
> Tolya is Anatoly Ranskahov, the Russian Mob boss. Part of their agreement with Skye is that if she needs a little extra muscle, they free up men to help her protect assets and civilians. There are three men named Ivan in the Ranskahov organization, hence 'one of the Ivans' being a descriptor.
> 
> I'm cutting a large chunk of canon, because I had Skye shoot Simpson. Jessica doesn't want to punch out Skye like she did him, because Skye's actually nice to her. As a result, several things go un-investigated. They still happened, though, and will be revealed later. For the people who didn't watch canon, don't worry, you don't need to know about it yet.
> 
> To clarify, Jessica let Skye jump, to break the command, then jumped after, caught her, and used her knowledge of how to safely land from super-jumping to get them a safe landing.
> 
> Jessica recites the street names of her childhood neighborhood as a calming and focusing technique during panic attacks.
> 
> For the record, Foggy isn't actually fussing, he's showing healthy concern over a friend in distress. Jessica, however, has no context for that outside Trish being overprotective and worried sick.
> 
> In this canon, Coulson had his memories of the Guest House program altered and removed for his own sanity, even though he never was a recipient. Skye won't really go into details about that, because it's distressing beyond what she wants to tell civilians.
> 
> Black Sky has more physical coordination than Thomas does, and helps him not injure himself in the process of being a kid. Overall, though, Thomas runs the body.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
>   
> “I feel like crap. Unless you’re here to make me not feel like crap, go away.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night after facing down a monster is never totally comfortable.

Matt had stepped out for maybe fifteen minutes, enough to make it to the corner for another carton of juice, and came back to a burgeoning hostage situation in his apartment.

 _“Thomas Yukio Murdock Barnes_ , what have I said about listening to Uncle Foggy?”

His son’s body went still for a split second before backing up swiftly from where he’d cornered a new person on the sofa. The victim of the impromptu interrogation smelled strongly of an alcohol habit and limited hygiene, cut with the bright pepper of fear and the sourness of stress that’d been held too long. She was also currently trying to fold herself into the smallest space possible. Matt waited for her to say something before acknowledging her… he wasn’t sure who she was or why Skye had brought her home.

“Papa… Miss Jessica doesn’t have _any family.”_ Matt smothered a laugh at his son’s offended tone. “And she fights the oni too! She needs a family, or how’s she gonna beat the bad man? If she fights the bad man alone, he’s gonna hurt her real bad. And if we don’t give her a family so she can be not-as-bad-hurt, we’re being bad too. I don’t want to be bad!”

The laughter on Matt and Foggy’s breath died. Matt knelt down and opened his arms, accepting the shaking hug his son gave him, ignoring the wetness of tears on his shirt.

“Thomas, you are in no way a bad person,” Matt reassured him. “You are the best and brightest one of us.”

“He also managed to inherit your moral code,” Skye said dryly. Matt frowned at her. The normal pace of her heart was muted, almost inaudible. She smelled of soap, shampoo, hot water, and salt. Matt let go of their son to run hands an inch away from his sister, checking her for injuries. “Matt, stop, I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, you showered with a stranger in the apartment and your pulse is on vibrate. Foggy, call Jemma, and Claire. I’m calling Bucky.”

 _“No.”_ The order came hard and fast, sharp like a slap, and Matt staggered as though he’d been hit. “Bucky, Nat, and Clint aren’t to be brought in on this. Actually, add Darcy to the list, too. My case is a minefield of impaired consent issues and mind control. Friendly fire _isn’t_ , Matt.”

A series of nightmare scenarios played out for Matt in technicolor splashes as his brain tried desperately to avoid the obvious conclusion. “The target… did he… are you….”

“I’m _fine_.”

“Twelve hours.” Matt turned back towards to sofa, where their guest had stood up. “Kilgrave’s control can last a little over twelve hours. He only had a window to give her one order, which she did already. Avoid more exposure, and she’ll be fine. Stop crowding her.”

“You’re certain, Miss…”

“Jones. Jessica. Kilgrave is my problem, and I’ll handle him. You and your family don’t need to get involved.”

Matt let a small laugh past his defenses. The idea this family wouldn’t fight monsters was insane, ludicrous, impossible… just plain silly.

“Matt, she doesn’t know our family,” Skye chided, “you’re being a dipstick. We can talk about what we share and what we don’t, but don’t laugh at her for not knowing our lives. Jessica, if you want to grab a shower, I left clean towels on the counter.”

“Are you saying I stink?” Matt quirked his mouth at that. Jessica actually had a dry sense of humor he liked.

“Unless your next plan is pose as a homeless lady, I think you maybe need a shower,” Skye teased back in the same dry tone. There was a whoosh of air and Matt put a hand over his son’s eyes. “Hey, language! We have a kid here, thanks!”

<^>

Jessica turned on the shower right after locking the door. The sound would cover anything she chose to do in here, and the water would warm up better to scalding if she gave it some time. True enough, Skye had left a stack of folded towels next to the sink, a recently remodeled cabinet if Jessica wasn’t mistaken. She looked at her reflection with momentary disgust, and popped open the medicine cabinet behind it.

Snooping was second nature at this point. Everyone had secrets, she just preferred to know where they were.

The top shelf had translucent orange bottles, the kind that prescription drugs came in, all the way from edge to edge. Not unusual, given the small child outside. Parents tended to put pills theoretically out of reach. The unusual part was the labels. Not from any pharmacy Jessica knew. The top half was a bumpy, creme colored plastic, and the bottom was plain white sticker, with neatly printed directions for use. No names, no measurements, no identification of the pills inside. The directions ranged from ‘As needed for pain, no more than 8 a day’ and ‘Two pills at night, with food’ to the somewhat more ominous ‘One pill at onset of fever. Call for further instruction.”

The next shelf down had a decent supply of bandages, boxes of band-aids in various shapes, with patterns and without, sport tape and self-adhering wraps. It seemed… excessive, especially when paired with the extra large bottle of wound cleaner on the shelf below. The cleaner was one of a handful of bottles and jars; iodine, scar reduction cream, liquid skin, and a green plastic bottle with the hand written label “Buckaroo’s Horse-headed Liniment”.

Clearly, this family got injured a lot.

Jessica forced down some bile that rose at the memory of how well-stocked Dorothy’s cabinets had been. No matter how much they stocked in the way of first aid, though, Jessica needed to get the stench of the day off. Fortunately, the life she led had gifted her with the skills needed to take the fastest shower known to man. Even more fortunately, the shower didn’t have any disgustingly pink girl shit to pretend she hadn’t seen. Just plain, mostly unscented, high end soaps, shampoos, and conditioners. A small bucket of kid’s bath supplies hung off the in-shower rack, for a kid younger than the ten year old she’d met. Jessica turned off the tap and tucked a fallen foam and vinyl letter back into the bucket before drying off quickly and shimmying back into her clothes.

A knock broke her free from a silent argument about the merits of opening the tiny window and dropping out that way.

“Jessica? It’s Skye. I brought some clean clothes if you want them.”

Jessica opened the door and pointedly looked over the shorter woman’s head before scanning down. “Thanks for the offer. I’m good.”

“Don’t underestimate my spare clothing supply. We have a friend about your size, and I thought you might not want to smell like dumpster.” Skye narrowed her eyes at the room behind Jessica, and Jess worried for a moment she’d left the door of the cabinet open, exposing her snooping. However, there just wasn’t anything to do about that, and for now, it was easier to just take the clothes with a grunt of thanks and close the door again. Turning to look where Skye had looked, she saw nothing particularly out of place. Oh well. There was an unopened three pack of cotton undies on top of the stack, and Jessica wasn’t sure what day hers were on. Take comfort in little blessings, she told herself, the mental voice reminding her of one of the therapists who sucked less.

<^>

“So, she did go through the medicine cabinet, but there’s no way to smuggle anything out in the clothing she was wearing,” Skye told her brother. “So unless she actually _took_ a pill, as in swallowed it, which I doubt unless she was actually in pain, our stash is safe. Unclench, Matt.”

“Where did you find her again?”

“She’s Walker’s sister.” Skye leaned around Foggy, who was heating up some of Natasha’s homemade curry, and snagged a bit.

“Hey! No snitching from the pan,” Foggy protested, wagging his spoon at her. Skye giggled and danced out of his reach. The little domestic interactions settled her. 

She could still feel Kilgrave’s voice in her head, like the remnant of a cold itching her sinuses and irritating her eyes. It hurt, how easily she’d lost herself, how she couldn’t refuse to do what he said. Even the strange calmness of her limbs as he mind screamed and fought, her body disobeying the fundamental desire of all living things to keep living. She remembered her fear, her helplessness, the weak and trembling sob she bit down on hard enough to draw blood from her cheek. She refused to give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing her break, and after, she’d pretended she bit it in the fall from the roof. Now, it burned as a reminder that her body had not been her own. An iron-tinged brand of shame.

“Hey! Away from the window.” Skye blinked at Jessica’s face, inches from her own. “No balconies here. You did it, you’re okay. You followed the order and now you can stop.”

“I wasn’t going to jump out the window,” Skye told her, cheeks warming at the secondary shame of how much she wanted to spit the words, wanted to fight back against this intruder. It wasn’t Jessica’s fault. Jessica had saved her. But the acid wouldn’t leave her mind.

“Your hands were on the latch,” Foggy said gently, putting one hand on her shoulder.

“And you don’t smell right,” Matt added. She looked over and saw that Thomas had wrapped his arms around Matt at the thigh, keeping him by the dining chairs. Her son’s face was dark and serious. Not Thomas, then, but Black Sky.

“I’m sorry, guys, I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I didn’t mean to scare you. You’re my family, I love you guys, I’d never want to hurt you the way that would.” Black Sky released Matt and walked over, careful and deliberate as he always was.

“I think,” he said slowly, glancing quickly at Jessica, “you should eat, and then sleep. Take the medicine for sleeping, too.”

Skye didn’t feel at all tired, but given that the being that lived in her son wasn’t prone to offering advice unless it affected the continued existence of Thomas’ caretakers, she figured he was probably right. Foggy pressed a bowl of curry into her hands, and Matt removed the empty. She didn’t really even notice the eating. She also didn’t quite register the water she took the sedative with, or when she changed into her sleep clothes. But her eyes shut, and when they opened again, sunlight was streaming in the windows.

“What in the fuck?” she mumbled, pulling herself out of bed with a groan. the bedroom door whispered open, and she glared at Karen evilly. “I feel like crap. Unless you’re here to make me not feel like crap, go away.”

“I need a saliva sample,” Karen said. Her voice was flatter than normal, almost cold. “Open up.”

“Up yours,” Skye retorted, then recoiled. “No. Oh, what the hell is happening to me? Karen, I did not mean that.”

“Possible back-swing of mood and attitude,” Karen said, and Skye noted the recording unit clipped to her shirt. Jemma used those sometimes during autopsies. “I need that saliva sample, Skye. It’s a swab, it won’t hurt.”

“Why? Just tell me what’s happening?”

“You were still under Kilgrave’s control last night,” Karen told her. “Matt called me to help figure it out, since you’d placed a moratorium on the Tower residents. I am, or was, a scientist.”

Skye obediently opened her mouth for Karen to swab. She wasn’t messing about with an unknown influence on her if she could help it. “So how did you figure it out? I don’t even remember being controlled except for the… the one thing.”

“He’s a sneaky bastard and you’re a ray of sunshine is how,” Karen said dryly, sealing away the wet swab. “He told you to do something you ordinarily do. His exact words, according to Miss Jones, were ‘be a love and jump off the balcony’ and while you finished the balcony task with her help, you spent the next twelve or so hours compelled….”

“To be a love?” Skye snorted. “What the fuck? He doesn’t have that fine of control if a phrase like that slipped through. I do sort of recall being… extra nice? Normally I’d have been much more suspicious of Jones, she hid a super-power, went through our bathroom cabinet, and went off plan at Kilgrave’s. Understandably, but still… not usually something I’d be calm about.”

“And of course, you’re normally so loving, it took awhile to notice anything wrong.”

“Sarcasm isn’t a good look on you,” Skye grumbled. Karen made a humming noise. “What?”

“You seem more irritable than usual. And less empathetic, if you thought I was being sarcastic. I’d have to run tests, but I think you bounced to the other side of the mood spectrum from where you’d been held. Like dropping a pendulum.” Karen gave her a small smile, one that seemed more appropriate to the woman Skye knew than the colder attitude of earlier. “You should rest. Thomas is at school, and Agent Harrow is taking him afterwards to the park with the others. Agent Triplett is handling the leads from the controlled officer. You don’t have to do anything right now, Skye. Focus on self care.”

“Thanks.” It was good advice, but hard to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Oni: Thomas-speak for super villains.  
> Friendly fire: hitting your own side in a fight.  
> Horse-Headed: stubborn.
> 
> Notes:  
> Thomas is an extrovert, and he hasn't had great social education on respecting boundaries prior to adoption, so when he likes a person, he gets in their space. Jessica is an introvert who doesn't just have issues, she has subscriptions. Thomas isn't meaning to scare her, but she is upset by his invasion of her space.
> 
> The heroes of the Bodies Verse mostly fight as a team, and live as a family. Thomas is accustomed to repeated statements along the lines of team makes you stronger and family makes you safer, and Jessica's lone wolf thing worries him greatly. He knows what his intended role as Black Sky was, and he's determined to be the opposite of bad.
> 
> FINE is an acronym in Skye's other family, meaning Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional. Her use of it as a word would be worrisome to most of the people she spends time with, but it's just normal enough to slip past Matt and Foggy. It is however, a subconscious distress call.
> 
> "Friendly fire isn't" is a rule from Murphy's Laws of Warfare, pointing out that despite the name, nobody actually feels friendly to those who shoot them. It's used to remind people not to hurt their teammates, and in this case that includes making people with a specific set of traumas face a guy who is a walking non-consent warning.
> 
> Skye and Matt try not to swear around Thomas, and use some terms out of context to pseudo-swear. Dipstick is code for dick, for example. Since Clint, a frequent babysitter, is deaf and uses sign language, flipping the bird counts as swearing.
> 
> The prescriptions are SHIELD issue and labeled in both print and Braille labels. They aren't labeled like most pill bottles, because some of the meds are highly experimental and/or classified. Only the use instructions are given to preserve secrecy.
> 
> Horse Liniment is a good substance for bruises, aches, and sore or tired muscles (Author's Warning: be sure to get one rated for human use by the FDA, or make your own) and Bucky gives out bottles of the stuff he used to make for Steve to his horse-headed family.
> 
> Dorothy was Jessica's adopted mother, Trish's bio-mom. She was abusive to Trish, and only stopped when Jessica threatened to intervene with super strength.
> 
> Deborah Ann Woll, Karen's actress, is a tiny bit taller and about the same size range as Krysten Ritter, Jessica's actress. Skye has several go-bags ready for their civilian friends and family, so she raided Karen's bag to get something for Jessica.
> 
> Matt could hear Jessica open the cabinet, and Skye is in the habit of laying one hair over the upper hinge, so it falls when opened. That's how they know she looked at their stuff.
> 
> Here's the recipe for [Natasha's Curry](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/246746/homemade-japanese-curry/)
> 
> Skye's behavior is weird because her system is fighting back as hard as it can against the viral nature of Kilgrave's power. The remaining order was vague and unintended, and so it's not as easy to follow, which leaves a tiny window of resistance for her subconscious.
> 
> Karen in this AU is a former research scientist who had to change identities. Her behavior as "Karen Page, Assistant" is different than her behavior as "Isabelle Schaffer, Scientist", which is what Skye sees as out of character.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “What are you doing?”  
> “Saving these losers. You put people in the hospital. They’re shitsacks, but they don’t deserve that.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovering from Kilgrave is a long, arduous process, and you need friends to make it work.
> 
> Recovering Kilgrave... isn't any easier with friends.

Looking at his sister, Matt was starting to think maybe calling Bucky was in order. If nobody could get close to the mind-raping bastard that did this, then a long distance eliminations specialist was who you wanted.

It had been three days since Jessica Jones had pulled his sister away from the window. Three days since a hard woman used soft hands with uncertain skill to guide his sister through eating and undressing and getting in bed. Three days since he asked Foggy to keep Thomas in another room, and Jessica told Matt everything. Three days since he added her to the circle of trust out of necessity and equality.

Three days Skye hadn’t been out of bed except to use the toilet and cry in the shower so Thomas couldn’t hear.

“Skye? I brought you breakfast?”

“Leave it on the table,” she instructed, not even turning over.

“It’ll get soggy.”

Skye rolled over at that. She made a skeptical sound, like hope gone stale. “Is that….”

“Barton’s Sugar Rush. With chocolate milk.”

She started crying, but at least she sat up and took the bowl. “You hate this stuff.”

“But I love you, and you needed it. My love is stronger than my hate.” Matt sighed, and sat next to her. “Thomas has an appointment with Sam today after school. Would you feel up to going with him?”

Skye sighed, and Matt forced his face to stillness. Her breath was, frankly, rank. He selfishly hoped she recovered from the lethargy that had prevented basic hygiene quickly, then felt bad at thinking it.

“Get your guilt-face off, Matt, I’m willing to push through for our kid. Can you take Trip with you on evening patrol, for me though? I don’t want you fighting alone, but you need to punch someone soon. I can see the itch from here.”

He was happy to agree with her, since for one, she was right, and for another, it was the first sign of her old self he’d seen.

After work, he waved at Foggy, thanked Karen again for stepping up to the science plate when their preferred science teams were unreachable for various reasons. Not that being unreachable had prevented him leaving a very long, very _calm_ , very precise message telling Agent Coulson what did and did not qualify as an appropriate first time leadership case.

“Hey, man, you okay?” Trip asked him. They were in a residential area on the northern edge of Hell’s Kitchen, standing on a fire escape. “You’ve been quiet all night. Quieter than is normal for you, anyways. You normally crack a _few_ jokes in between the beat downs.”

“This is the first day since the case started that Skye’s eaten without constant nagging,” Matt told him.

Trip made a sympathetic sound in his chest. “That’s good though, right?”

“It was a bowl of dehydrated marshmallows and skim milk,” Matt said flatly.

“You know you can call Barton and he’ll make real food she’ll eat, right? Or Barnes the elder. You’ve got backup here, dude.”

“Her last coherent order was not to spread the contagion,” Matt muttered. “Nobody who’s been controlled or whammied. We’re not doing friendly fire.”

Trip paused, holding his body tightly, like he wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure of the reception it would get. Matt waited, and was about to find out what it was, when he heard the characteristic foulmouthed swearing of Jones coupled with a gunshot.

<^>

The Devil flew.

Strangely, this was Jessica’s primary thought when the angry losers trying to kill her had their faces kicked, punched, or otherwise rearranged by a burgundy blur. She’d been thinking of him when she told them she had other enhanced friends, but she hadn’t actually expected he’d show. Sure, Matt claimed he could hear through walls, that his sister was a super spy, that his brother was the street specter sometimes called Death, and she’d known he didn’t think he was lying. But that was in the warmth of the ridiculously plush apartment with the crap view. It had been hard to really believe the blind lawyer with the adorable kid was a violent vigilante known as ‘the Devil’ to Hell’s Kitchen’s scummier side.

Until, of course, she mentioned him and he appeared.

“Psst, this way,” someone said, and Jess glanced over to see a dark-suited man offering her a hand. She looked at it skeptically. “I’m with him, I brought first aid gear. He’ll fight better if he’s not protecting you.”

“Fuck that,” Jessica growled, and threw herself at the man, who was aiming his gun at the Devil’s head. Her knee impacted his solar plexus and she got a grim thrill from the dry wheeze forced out. She lifted the limp body like a waitress hoisting a tray, and looped her left arm out to grab the still fighting woman away from the Devil.

“What are you doing?” The Devil growled, and Jessica couldn’t even hear the man in him, only the terrible monster that scared criminals shitless.

“Saving these losers. You put people in the _hospital_. They’re shitsacks, but they don’t deserve that.” She shoved the woman at the guy who offered the first aid kit. “You patch them, I have to talk with our friend here.”

The guy gave her a look like ‘not my job, crazy lady’ but she ignored it, and dropped the man between the woman and her. Then, she jerked her head at the Devil and walked out.

The alley was dark, and cold, and damp in that disgusting way that happened when rain came before trash day.

“Are you okay?” Now he sounded like Matt again.

“I’ll be fine,” Jess said, shaking her head. “Better question, what are you doing out here? Why are you punching random losers when you have a…”

The Devil tensed. Jess snapped her teeth together.

“When you have something more important.”

“I’m not sure that’s your business.”

“Bull shit it’s not my business. She risked her life, her _sanity_ , to keep me from being a murderer. Too little, too late, but I owe her for the faith in me it took to do it. The squirt looked at me like, I don’t know… he looked at me and for a second there, I didn’t feel like shit. They got under my skin faster than anybody _ever_ gets under my skin. If you neglect them to come out doing this adrenaline junky bullcrap, I’m going to take objection.”

There was a long pause. Long enough for Jessica to doubt her choice to be honest. She didn’t say things like this. If she felt them, she buried them in alcohol and bad life choices with men who weren’t good for her.

“Skye took Thomas to his therapy appointment today, and then they’ll have dinner with the rest of her family. They’re safe, Jess.”

Jessica let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

“Good, good.” Something he said registered. “Thomas has therapy?”

“Adopted children rarely have backgrounds made of sunshine and roses,” Matt said dryly. “Aside from that, all of us have therapy. It’s… useful.”

“Does Skye?”

“In theory.” Matt blew out a hard breath. “She didn’t go this week. Hence me needing to be here, ‘doing this adrenaline junkie bullcrap’ because I can’t put my fist through the head of the ass who did this to her.”

Jess hissed. She knew the feeling, from Skye’s perspective. She also knew the feeling Matt was having. Trish’s on again off again with sobriety made her want to hurt things too. “There’s this, like, support group thing. For victims of Kilgrave. Hope’s lawyer got it together, partly to get testimony on Hope’s behalf, but it’s not terrible I guess.”

“If Jerri organized it, I don’t doubt that.” Jess started, then remembered Matt’s day job. Of course he knew Jerri Hogarth. “Do you go?”

“Shit, no. I don’t need to spend time crying about my feelings to people he used.”

“I didn’t mean for therapy.” The man was slipping back, the monster sticking his head up. Like a dog who heard the treat tin open. Jess felt the murderer in her sitting up too, the dark twin of her soul leaning out to wave at his. “We need to find Kilgrave. That means tracking him. Normally, you follow the money….”

“Kilgrave doesn’t use _money_ ,” she interrupted. “He just uses his power and people give him whatever he wants. He uses _people_.”

The Devil grinned a bloody, promise-filled grin. “He uses people, and discards them.”

“Like breadcrumbs,” Jess finished. “All the way to the gingerbread house.”

<^>

“Everyone knows their part, yeah?” Skye checked in again. She knew it was overkill, but her recovery after the last attempt had been slow, painful, and put an unacceptable delay in her schedule. It should not take half a month to track down one psychopath, not for her. Her brothers had done what they could to help her recover, but Matt had his firm and Thomas, and Bucky had been preoccupied by a mission that took Darcy to the other coast.

“He shows up here for coffee and a meeting at ten sharp. When he does, I’m gonna tranq his ass,” Trip said. “I’ve got the new ICER rounds loaded with surgical grade anesthetic.”

“When he goes down, Lunknik and I haul him back to the van,” Jones said. “You’ll drive it like you stole it to the containment room you had set up. Night Nurse will meet us there, provided we can secure him.”

“One question,” Anatoly said, raising a finger. “May I stab him?”

“No,” Skye ordered. “It’s always a no. No stabbing.”

“Aww,” he scrunched his face. “Not deadly, just light stabbing?”

“No stabbing, Tolya.” Skye gave him a look. “What’s got into you? You know my feelings on the light stabbing of prisoners.”

Tolya looked away from her, twitching his eyes at Jones. “ On sdelal tebe bol'no i zastavil tebya plakat'.”

“Can you do this?” Skye lowered her voice. “If it hits you too personally, I can switch with you.”

“Net, I’m good.” Tolya nodded. “If you can do this, I can do this too.”

“Come on, Lunknik,” Jones said with an eye roll, grabbing gently at his sleeve. “Let’s get in place.”

Skye flipped open her tablet and brought up the feeds from the cameras facing the plaza. Kilgrave was sitting at a small round table, scanning one of the entrances. Waiting for someone. Their information said he met with someone, every day, here. From what Jessica had said, his control used to last exactly twelve hours. Karen’s measurements indicated that time had grown, Skye had been actively reacting for thirteen hours and forty two minutes. Either way, a daily appointment meant he was meeting someone he wasn’t controlling. At least, not with his powers, there were of course other ways to control someone.

She flicked her fingers across the screen. The videos whirled, pushing some feeds smaller and enlarging the ones that looked the direction Kilgrave was focused. Mostly random civilians. A familiar face caught her eye.

“Trip, hold action,” she ordered. “What happened with the cop from Walker’s apartment?”

“Simpson? We let him go when he tested clean for Kilgrave fuckery. Why?”

“He’s stalking up like big city Rambo,” Skye groused. “Tolya, break off and corral the blonde very badly acting casual.”

“Da, I see him.”

“Shit, Kilgrave’s spotted him,” Jones said, a touch too loud on the comms. She hadn’t gotten the hang of them yet. “What do we do?”

“Trip, do you have the shot?” Skye asked.

“I got it.”

“Take it.”

There was a sharp puffing sound in her left ear from Trip’s silenced rifle, and then someone screamed, because of course Kilgrave would stagger dramatically and knock a table over. Skye watched her tablet with intensity as Jones grabbed up the unconscious man, Tolya dropped at the hands of Simpson, and another unmarked van, this one seeming to be a rental, tore up like an extra from a Fast and Furious movie.

“Trip, cover Jones,” Skye ordered, and ran to defend Tolya’s fallen form. An angry soccer mom was yelling about something, and getting between Skye and her target, so Skye pulled her own ICER and pointedly flipped the safety. “Ma’am, evacuate the area, this is a warm zone and getting warmer.”

“Terrorist!” the woman shouted. Skye glanced away from Tolya to argue that, when she heard Jones start cussing a blue streak that rivaled Darcy Lewis in sheer profanity if not creativity. She did not panic. Panic implied fear. Fear was an emotion. Skye, in that moment, ceased to be a creature of emotion.

She hip-checked the still-screaming civilian, scooped up Tolya under his arm, and kept going, taking up a covered position behind a pretzel cart. She poked her head up to find a target, only to see Jones and her sister having a screaming match, which, if the lack of screaming on the comm, and the red mark on Jones’ face, were an indication, had involved some slapping.

In the back of her mind, a voice that sounded like Coulson sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Tranq: tranquilize.  
> Lunknik: generically Russian sounding nickname Jessica has given Anatoly.  
> On sdelal tebe bol'no i zastavil tebya plakat': He hurt you, and made you cry.  
> Net: No.  
> Da: Yes.  
> Rambo: a famous cinematic commando.
> 
> Notes:  
> Skye is dealing with trauma, both mental and physical. The way Kilgrave's powers are explained in the Jessica Jones show, he exudes a viral body that carries the control. So she's both dealing with having been mind controlled, and recovering on an antibiotic level as you would with a cold or flu. That means rest, fluids, and lots of emotional support.
> 
> Clint Barton gifted Skye a box of nothing-but-marshmallows cereal, which Matt calls Barton's Sugar Rush. He hates it with a passion, but they still keep it for when Skye needs emotional comfort.
> 
> Trip knows that Matt is taking Skye's order not to bring in people with triggers too seriously, because every one of them would gladly help and all have significant current support on that matter. However, the inside of Matt's head is a bundle of landmines and needs gentle handling.
> 
> Jessica knows the street criminal slang more than the official newspaper terms when it comes to vigilante heroes, because her job puts her in contact with the criminal element more than the journalistic one. She's also tracked various people, including Turk Barrett, to the hospital after Matt beat the crap out of them, so her reaction is based in knowledge of the aftermath, not the moral grounding he fights from.
> 
> Anatoly has a one-sided crush on Skye. He knows it's one-sided and he's okay with that, but he's not okay with anybody hurting her. He's specifically not okay with someone making her cry, since he's attracted to the fact that she's a scary lady, and his ideas of badass don't mesh with tears.
> 
> Jessica is bad at communication, and Trish is equally bad at it. So while Jessica was tracking and planning with Matt and Skye, Trish and Simpson met up so he could apologize, and both teams planned a raid at the same place and time. This caused the whole thing to go very badly wrong, and Kilgrave is not, for the record, actually captured.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “There are many hackers,” Coulson said gently, sitting beside her. “There’s only one Skye.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another crisis rears its head.

Matt had been getting ready for work when the bell rang. Technically, when the bell clicked, and Skye’s phone buzzed on the nightstand, they’d removed the bell part itself in favor of an alert system for her phone. Matt knocked on the frame of Thomas’ door on his way out of the back of the apartment.

“School soon, bud. You ready?”

“Yep!” His son’s chipper tone made Matt smile. Matt nodded and headed to the door. The man on the other side would be more than able to wait.

“Agent Coulson, come on in. What can I do for you?”

“We need to recall Skye, and put some… precautions in place.” Coulson sounded grim, more so than Matt expected, surely this wasn’t just his angry messages and the damage Skye had taken.

“What’s wrong?”

“Former Agent Grant Ward escaped the custody of his older brother, Senator Christian Ward, shortly after Skye’s last SHIELD mission. She was assigned here partly in the hopes that since Grant knew nothing of her ties with HERO, she would be safe.” Coulson blew a hard breath and Matt caught a whiff of sour acid, guilt, and worry. “However, her expertise is needed on a new mission, and frankly, when Grant couldn’t contact her by putting a phone on a Hydra agent he captured for us, he… worsened. Apparently, being denied the right to send Skye gift wrapped Nazis in exchange for phone calls triggered a deeper psychotic break. They found Christian Ward and his parents dead by apparent murder suicide last night.”

“Seriously?” Skye’s voice was ice cold. Matt didn’t blame her, it sucked to be sidelined for your protection, especially since she’d gotten hurt anyway.

“Skye…” Coulson broke off as Thomas entered the room. “Uh, hi.”

“I’m ready for school, Dad.” Matt took the offered hug and scanned the street outside the apartment with his hearing. “Can I spend the night with the cousins? Clint said yesterday he wanted to make cookies with me some time.”

“Only if you promise to bring some home,” Skye said quickly. Matt gave her an unimpressed look. “And, uh, finish all your homework. I’ll be checking with Jarvis, so no funny business.”

“They’re downstairs waiting for you. Go on, be good, pay attention, have a good time.” Matt accepted the hug his son offered, and waited with one ear angled at the steady beats of the two Jachkt who served as escort for the students who did their full studies at the tower.

“So are we going to talk about how seriously fucked up Ward is?” Skye said once Thomas was out of hearing range. “What sort of severe brokenness results in thinking Hydra agents are a good make-up gift? Ew. Please tell me we have a lead on him.”

“Sadly, no,” Coulson said. “But the work you did on the Words of Creation case is paying off. I secured us a satellite relay station, and we should be able to do a scan of the Earth’s crust, find that city before Whitehall does.”

“I get the feeling you’re just shuffling me to avoid putting me in danger,” Skye said warily. Matt rolled his eyes. Of course that’s what Coulson was doing.

“Not just,” Coulson said, the warmth of a smile on his voice. Skye let out a sub-audible sigh. Matt shifted awkwardly.

“So, you’ll be looking for lost cities? Can I ask why?”

“There’s a macguffin that does a thing in a temple in the city,” Skye explained. “Hydra wants to take the macguffin to do the thing, so we’re assuming the thing is bad, what with Hydra being… Hydra, and all. So we want to get there first, and stop them.”

“You’re Indiana Jones, aren’t you?” Matt asked. “Lost cities, fighting Nazis, mysterious artifacts.”

Coulson bit out a coughing laugh. “More than you know. We found something… interesting on Whitehall, recently. He’s old guard… really old guard. Actual, served in the SS old, old guard.”

Skye went still for a second. “You know what, I don’t actually care about the how, I just really want to shoot him. I haven’t had anyone morally shootable in weeks, and I think it might help. Can you handle things here, Matt?”

“Of course, have fun fighting evil empires,” Matt gave his sister a kiss on the temple. “I’ll work with Jones on the Kilgrave thing, but we’ll try to keep it quiet until you get back.”

She hugged him, and Matt closed his eyes, reveling in the warm cat’s purr of her, the vibrating thrum finally feeling right again. She was going to get better, going to recover.

And for Kilgrave?

There’d be the Devil to pay.

<^>

Bucky smiled at his sister as her eyes lit up. “What are you doing here?” she cried, launching herself into his arms.

“Phil said you’d taken a hit in the line of duty, but not the kind you’d come to medical with. He thought partnering with Theta might help you feel better about the mission.”

“Sup, Barnes,” said Haley, from her position in one of the Bus’ chairs, sitting sideways as always. Why the girl couldn’t sit right unless she was lying mystified him, but if it worked for her he wasn’t complaining. “Want me to punch the guy? I would totally punch the guy for you.”

“Thanks, Graham,” Skye said dryly. “But if the problem were solved by punching, I probably wouldn’t still have it.”

“Thought I’d offer,” Haley said with a shrug. “Wei Wei brought ice cream from her newest boy toy. He works in SciDiv, supposedly this stuff tastes like Cold Stone Creamery, but has almost no carbs and three times the normal protein. Oahu's a long enough flight from New York we can have a short girl’s night before we get there.”

He watched as his agents swarmed his sister, whisking her off, presumably to the room Mina and Jemma had prepared for exactly this purpose.

“So what happened?” he asked Phil, as the agent passed by him to get to the holo table. “You call me up, last minute, request I pull my team off their SHIELD training session to help, but not through official channels, and my sister looks like five miles of bad road. Something aside from the standard unpleasantness happened. What was it?”

“You know her mission was-”

“No.” Bucky cut off the lie of omission before it could fully leave Phil’s lips. “Do not give me a run around on this, Phil. She’s my sister. You really think she didn’t come to me about the hell assignment you gave her? Sure, she had trouble telling me about it for fear of triggering me, but do you really believe I’d let her get away with the very weak smokescreen she put up? No. I know about Kilgrave, and I’ve seen her more recently than you. This isn’t Kilgrave, this is new. What the fuck happened, Phil? You’re a better handler than this.”

“Grant Ward is loose, murdering family members, and still just as obsessed as he ever was,” Phil said quietly. “She just found out.”

“Ward’s been loose for a _month_ ,” Bucky said, mouth twisting in disgust. “Ciara told me when it happened. I didn’t tell Skye because _I assumed_ you’d have briefed her on that kind of threat to her. Phil, it is not like you to make this kind of colossal, bull headed, arrogant… mistake.”

Phil sighed and turned away, busying himself with files. Bucky grabbed his arm. “Talk to me.”

Phil mumbled something.

“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that,” Bucky said tightly. Luckily his metal hand had better control than his flesh one, so he wasn’t in danger of hurting his friend. Yet, anyway.

“I wanted to protect her!” Phil snapped, shame washing his features. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me… I never have this problem with May, or Natasha, or even Jemma. I’m not the kind of man who thinks women need protecting by men all the time, I got any trace of chauvinism beat out of me long ago. But the idea of Skye having to face him again, having to even _hear his voice_ … I needed to protect her from that. I needed to have her somewhere safe, but I couldn’t bench her, that would hurt her even more. Then she gets hit by mind control… I honestly didn’t think that was an internal power of his, by the way. I assumed there was machinery or drugs involved like there has been basically every other time.”

“Except Lorelai,” Bucky pointed out, then remembered Phil hadn’t been on that case. He’d been by Skye’s bedside after she was shot and saved with mystery alien goo. Actually, every time Bucky could recall Phil not being on the clock was paired with some instance of Skye being sick, injured, or freaking out.

“I need you to be my backup,” Phil continued, seeming not to notice Bucky’s interjection. “I’m behaving abnormally, and I trust you to keep the team safe and the mission on track if May ends up needing to beat me into pavement.”

“Have you considered, you may actually be reacting normally?” Bucky asked. Phil gave him a withering glare. “I mean, if you aren’t having this response to anyone else, just Skye. Because what it sounds like is a perfectly natural reaction to having a daughter in danger. My Da, rest him, was a madman for three weeks after Becca came home with one glove, because someone tried to grab her hand and she slipped out of it. Ward is a much bigger threat than a random drunk demanding attention from a passing girl.”

“She’s my agent, not my child,” Phil said slowly.

“On paper, sure,” Bucky shrugged. “She still calls you Dad sometimes when you’re being cautious and she wants to sass you, and you _don’t stop her_. You know how Thor and Loki talk about adoption, how it’s something that happens, even outside deliberate choice? I think you adopted Skye, in your heart.”

Phil was quiet, looking poleaxed and pale as implications hit him. Bucky stood quietly by his friend, willing to offer support for whatever shook out after the soul search.

“We’re going to have to file for a transfer of handling,” Phil said quietly. “It’s against regulations for direct family members to have control of an asset in the field, precisely because of this. Christ, this is going to break her heart….”

Bucky smiled at him. If Phil was onto paperwork, he would be okay. “One step at a time, let’s figure out how you ask her if she wants to be your daughter.”

<^>

It was night. The Bus was empty, and the lights were off, except for the low emergency LED’s at the baseboards, slowly pulsing towards the exits in a soothing flow meant to help people calmly evacuate. Skye wasn’t entirely sure what the emergency was, but she knew Coulson would know, or May, but she needed to find them first.

“Coulson? May?” Skye’s bare feet moved swiftly, covering ground at a steady pace, but there was still no sign of her team. “Trip? Jemma, Fitz, anyone?”

Her feet took her to the lab, the ground changing from carpet to smooth metal. She started at the sound of a baby crying, looked to the table, and saw it making wobbly movements towards crawling.

“Oh my God, what is a _baby_ doing on the Bus?” Skye asked, looking to Coulson, who was standing nearby. “Coulson? Who’s baby is that?”

“She’s mine,” he said, firmly. Too firmly. Almost a snarl. It didn’t sound like Coulson.

“Jeez, okay, she’s your kid, but why is she on Jemma’s operating table?”

“You have to save her,” said May, coming up behind Skye on cat-silent feet. “You’re the only one who can.”

“I know that, May,” said Coulson, his voice cracking. Skye looked between the two of them, neither of whom had made a move to help the baby crawling to the edge of the table.

“What is going on here!” Skye shouted. The baby cried louder, speeding towards the edge. Skye leapt to catch her, fell into a roll, and landed in a pile of flowers. The decaying scent was sticky sweet and _green_ , the way grass clippings and wild places are. Skye spat a mouthful of bitter white petals, and brushed more from the face of the sleeping child in her arms.

“You’re just like your mother,” Coulson said, and Skye looked up, but it wasn’t Coulson. Dark hair fell lazily across the pale forehead. Fine, almost handsome features smiled at her. A hand emerged from a dark purple pocket.

“Come on, then, be a love.”

“FUCK!” Skye yelped and dove to catch the bedside lamp her thrashing had knocked over.

“Are you okay?” asked Coulson, barging in, ICER drawn. Thankfully, he seemed not to notice she was half out of bed, legs tangled in sheets, ass in the air as she set down the lamp. “I thought I heard a struggle.”

“Nightmare. There was a baby, and you and May were being super creepy, and then I fell in flowers.” She rubbed her forehead absently as she hauled herself back onto the bed and up into a half lotus seat. “I think the incident at Laura Creek bothered me more than I realized. How’s Trip?”

“He’s going to be okay,” Coulson reassured her. She nodded, noting the phrasing. Precise, not placating. “Do you need some leave time? I know your father being involved has to make this case distressing.”

“No. I need to work,” Skye said, shaking her head at him. “For one thing, you need a hacker. If I hadn’t been at Kaena Point, Hydra would have gotten into their system and would be running the same search programs I did. They’d be going to San Juan, and we’d be in a race. At least now they’re a step behind us.”

“There are many hackers,” Coulson said gently, sitting beside her. “There’s only one Skye.”

“I’ll stop before I hurt myself,” Skye reassured him, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I just want to get this whole Diviner mess over with.”

They sat a moment like that, and she tried to memorize how it felt, the warmth, the safety, the subtle scent of Coulson’s aftershave winding around her.

“You look sleepy, let’s get you back under the covers,” Coulson said softly, and Skye let him guide her to lay down, snuggling into her pillow as he straightened and tucked the covers around her, and moved the lamp back to her bedside table. “Goodnight Skye.”

“Night Dad,” she mumbled sleepily. “Love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Jachkt: the culture that came from slaves in underground fight rings, now freed. See Bodies of Code for more.  
> Macguffin: the name for the plot device of a Thing everyone wants.  
> Cold Stone Creamery: a fancy ice cream franchise.
> 
> Notes:  
> Matt is mad at Coulson and letting him wait because of it. Skye is less mad at Coulson and more scared/angry at Ward, because he represents a real threat to her.
> 
> Theta is Strike Team Theta, a team of former gymnasts (from the movie Stick It) who were recruited and now work with Bucky as their handler.
> 
> Phil is, yes, behaving badly as a handler, because he's too close to Skye emotionally. Yes, they'll fix it, but likely not until after she gets her Inhuman powers.
> 
> The dream sequence takes place after the events of the mission, which sum up to: Skye and team were at an Air Force base getting what they needed when Hydra implemented a cyber attack to end run security. Skye stayed at Kaena Point to protect the data, while her team, including Trip and Coulson, went to the Laura Creek backup site to get rid of the attackers. Trip was shot and her bio-dad used him as a hostage to escape after giving Coulson a clotting agent to save his life.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “I’ll invoice you afterward at my normal rates, if that’s okay. I won’t know expenses until I’m done, and there’s a discount if I get to punch a Nazi.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions wind tighter as final battles approach.

As the apartment’s door opened, Matt stifled a snort of disgust. Natasha bumped his ribs with her elbow lightly, then stepped inside. They hadn’t heard from Jessica in the days after the failed bust, partly due to the murderous glares of her sister, according to Trip, and partly because Skye had wanted to focus on making sure Anatoly was okay, since he actually had gotten more than a slap. However, with Skye off fighting Nazis in hidden cities, and a known psychopath likely seeking out anyone connected to her, Matt figured it might be a good idea to check on the prickly private detective. Natasha had shown up as he was heading out, and he didn’t really question it. If it were important how she knew he was going to see Jessica, she’d tell him.

“What do you want?” the woman in question asked. Her voice was slurred and her sweat reeked like a still. She also smelled like men’s deodorant and aftershave. While more women than probably wanted to admit it used the less expensive, more effective, male marketed antiperspirants, the aftershave was a bit more telling.

Not that he actually cared who she slept with, unless the guy got dragged into the drama around Matt, Skye, and HERO.

“We hadn’t heard from you in a few days, thought we’d stop by and see how you were doing,” Matt said. “Looks like you’re doing well to me, though.”

“You’re _blind_ , Murdock,” she said dryly. He waited a second and then she snorted. “Okay, that was actually pretty funny. Who’s this?”

Matt turned slightly to indicate Natasha should answer, since he hadn’t actually mentioned his relationship to the Black Widow to Jones while he was laying everything else out. Just the things that directly impacted his work as Daredevil.

“Natasha Romanova,” Natasha said smoothly, sticking a hand out. Matt could hear the crunch of cartilage readjusting as the two women shook, Natasha using every inch of her knowledge of super strength to put them on the same level. Jones let out an impressed hum, although her own muscles were hardly straining. “Skye is my aunt, which makes Matt my uncle.”

“Oh.” Matt could practically feel the gears turning in Jessica’s head as she waved at them to find seating. “Um, I’m sorry, if I uh… Look, it may sound racist, but was the Russian guy Simpson laid out also a relative? I didn’t know you two had any Russian relations, Barnes and Murdock aren’t exactly Eastern European names, but now that I think of it, he _did_ seem very close to Skye. If he _is_ family, I’m sorry I called him Lunknik.”

Natasha laughed, and Matt smiled. He loved Natasha’s laugh, the real one that burst out of her like it was on the run from her training. He was starting to think Thomas was right, and they needed to find a way to convince Jessica to be adopted. It would be like rescuing a feral cat, but worth it if Natasha laughed like that more.

“Tolya’s a friend, but not family,” Matt explained, when he felt Jessica shift from startled to offended by the laughter. “Regardless, nicknames are a sign of affection. If he didn’t tell you not to, he probably thinks you’re a very personable and friendly individual.”

Jones scoffed out a half laugh.

“Not why I laughed,” Natasha said through the last dregs of laughter. “He would be willing to be family, _by marriage_ , but Skye isn’t interested in him romantically. He knows she doesn’t reciprocate, and he understands, but the tension keeps him from being adopted as a cousin. That sort of attraction is weird inside the family.”

“Understanding guy,” Jones said. “Most don’t take rejection that well.”

“Speaking of which,” Matt muttered darkly, “we came to give you a heads up. Skye’s psychotic sort-of-ex is loose, and while we don’t think he knew about me, or the branch of the family in the Kitchen, he’s probably trying to track her down.”

“Which means he might have seen her with me,” Jones filled in. “Thanks, I appreciate the warning, but I think I can handle him.”

“Probably,” Natasha agreed. “In hand to hand. However, Ward is a highly trained specialist, the only person to come close to my own score in Espionage at the Academy. He’s spent his entire adult life doing one thing and one thing only, lying to get past people’s defenses. Not just people, professional spies, the most paranoid demographic outside a clinical diagnosis.”

“I was under the complete control of a madman with magic powers for several months,” Jones said sourly. “Clinical paranoia, I got. Now, if you’ll both excuse me, it’s almost time for my ten o’clock, and I’d like to put on a clean shirt first.”

<^>

Hearing “Hey, I need a favor” from a notorious assassin does not usually indicate a day that’s going to go well. Jessica frowned at the phone in her hand. She didn’t actually recall giving Romanova her number, not that it would matter to a former Soviet spy, SHIELD agent, and Avenger. Yeah, Jessica had looked her up. Despite the hoodie-clad delinquent look, the underlying facial structure she remembered bore a striking resemblance to the put-together red-head who never gave interviews. The rest of the story hung together too well, also. It wasn’t exactly unlikely a SHIELD agent like Skye knew another SHIELD agent, well enough to have seemingly adopted her, albeit with an odd snarl of age versus relationship.

“That depends. Are you asking Matt’s friend Jessica, or are you asking Ms. Jones, owner of Alias Investigations?”

“I’m asking Jessica,” the woman said, _“because_ she’s the owner of Alias Investigations. I need a certain skill set, but I can’t ask anyone I don’t trust implicitly. Since the skill set in question is sneaking around and violating people’s privacy, the list is pretty short.”

Jessica snorted. “Not inclining me to help you, here.”

“The list is short because the list is basically you,” Natasha said. “Take a moment and think about that, please.”

Jessica bit back a hearty ‘fuck you’ and rolled her eyes. What a spy needed her for anyway was a mystery. She wasn’t anywhere near Romanova’s level of skill in information gathering, her infiltration skills were laughable in comparison, and her resources were pennies compared to Stark’s support of the Avengers. A spy with the backing of super heroes and government agencies shouldn’t need a private eye.

Which meant the list was short because of the trust issue.

Which meant Matt’s niece didn’t feel safe.

Which meant there was something out there that scared the Black Widow.

Something she trusted _Jessica_ to find.

“Two questions,” she started, forcing her voice to be firm, uncompromising. “One, are you somewhere you feel safe right now?”

“I’m very safe,” Natasha said. “I’m also very visible. Everyone I would normally trust on this is. The problem isn’t operational security, it’s secrecy. They know where we are, and that we’re looking for them. But you? You’re invisible to them.”

Jessica nodded, starting to smile. “Just a washed up, day drinking, half broke private eye,” she agreed. “Second question, what’s the job?”

“I need you to follow a paper trail for me, looking for someplace Hydra might have stashed prisoners. I can get you the start of the trail, we found it in a raid on a related set of scum suckers, but they know I have it.”

“I can follow a trail,” Jessica said, face lifting in a way she barely recognized as a smile. Maybe it had been too long since she had a real smile on her face, or maybe what her lips were doing wasn’t a smile, but it felt good. It felt good to have someone to go after, a lead to chase to the ground. To be able to fight back. “I’ll invoice you afterward at my normal rates, if that’s okay. I won’t know expenses until I’m done, and there’s a discount if I get to punch a Nazi.”

<^>

Skye flicked her eyes over Raina as Jemma tended to the cut on her forehead. The infamous girl in a flower dress. She’d been too much of a thorn in the side since the start to ever trust a call for help from her, but the Koenigs had called it in. Of course, it promptly went to shit as soon as their team had boots on the ground.

They never should have split the party.

It had made sense, to send agents who already knew Raina to bring her in. She was wily and clever and had those big innocent eyes that could make you itch to protect her. You had to have seen under the mask, had to have a certain experience being hurt by that innocent face. It also made sense to keep the head agent on the Words of Creation case, not to disrupt the potentially disastrous assignment. That, by necessity, meant splitting up the team, sending Skye, Jemma, May, and some backup in the form of Hunter to Canada, and Coulson, Fitz, and Theta to San Juan.

It had made sense, but having her face nearly scraped off by Agent 33 to protect a woman who _wanted_ to be captured by Hydra made Skye suspect it wasn’t the smartest play.

“You were lucky,” Jemma pronounced. “Your hard head kept that from being much worse.”

Skye smiled in thanks at her friend, who returned the expression, then wheeled on Raina.

“And _you_ are lucky Coulson isn’t here. I recommend you give Skye something very valuable, since her good word is the only thing that will keep you safe once the team meets at the rally point.”

As Jemma stalked off, Skye reflected on that. Neither Coulson nor Jemma were frequently the bad cop, but when they did decide to take the darkness on… it was scary.

“I do feel lucky we found each other,” Raina said, drawing Skye’s attention back to the interrogation at hand. Despite the comfort of the Bus kitchen, and the mugs of cocoa in front of both of them, it was an interrogation. “Your father has told me so much about you.”

“That’s… interesting, considering I’ve never met him.”

“Of course you have, when you were born. Did you know he actually delivered you?”

“No,” Skye mused. She wanted to lash out, to protest the association of the deadly madman with any form of father figure, but it wouldn’t help. “Tell me about him?”

Raina wove an interesting tale, a young con artist living in Thailand, scamming tourists with a gang of other petty criminals. Self identified freaks, taken in by a man Skye barely believed was the same one who perpetrated such cold-blooded murders, who risked Trip’s life to escape back to Hydra. Raina talked about him like a father, and honestly, that idea fit better than Skye trying to picture being his daughter.

“It sounds like he was a good father to you,” she mused, watching the emotions break across Raina’s face. Joy, longing, the aching sadness of empathy, and finally the calmly passive reassurance that characterized her.

“No… Skye, no one could ever replace you. You’re all he wants.”

“People can have more than one kid, you know,” Skye said quietly, looking at the patterns in the foam on her cocoa. “If he was your Dad when you needed one… I’m happy for you. For both of you. Not having a family… it can drive you crazy.”

“You’ve felt it then? Lost? Like you were supposed to be a part of something bigger. That you were special.”

“When you say ‘special’, I hear ‘alien’, just so you know,” Skye pointed out.

“We’re human, Skye. We just have the potential to be more. Now, the Diviner… that’s alien.” Skye nodded and Raina continued. “My grandmother came from a long line of special people, who believed in a story about the blue angels that came from heaven. The ancients called them the Kree.”

Skye felt herself lock up. Raina paused, looking at her. “I can neither confirm nor deny prior knowledge of the Kree,” Skye said stiffly. “But if I had heard of them, I would have been told to be very careful of them.”

Raina smiled. “Because the Kree want change, and change is a difficult process. That’s why the Diviner exists, as a guide to the temple, so only the worthy can find it.”

It wasn’t the truth, but Skye was willing to go with it. “And what happens when someone follows that guide?”

“Only the worthy are allowed inside the temple to witness it’s true power, to become more. Those who are not…” She gave a delicate shrug. “I hope they’ve said their goodbyes.”

Skye felt her face blanch, and stood to run towards the holotable, to contact the team in San Juan. They were in danger, and she had to stop it. Ignoring May, she hit the keys with a ferocity that almost scared her, but no signal came up.

“Damnit, why isn’t this working?” she growled, tossing off May’s hand on her shoulder. “Is someone _hacking_ us? In the _air_? I admire the balls, but I’m gonna mount them like trophies when this is over.” The radio crackled with static as an incoming transmission forced its way past her firewalls and took over the PA system.

“Attention, SHIELD 6-1-6, do not engage your defenses or you will be shot out of the sky,” announced a smarmy voice she knew too well.

“Whitehall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Lunknik: the nickname Jessica gave Anatoly (mix of lunk, stupid muscle, and the suffix -nik, a Russianization)  
> Operational Security: the safety of an operation, keeping untrustworthy people out of the mix.
> 
> Notes:  
> Matt's humor runs to blind jokes, poking fun at how the English language is geared to assume sight. He uses lots of words like "see" and "look" as humor, as well as making statements that are completely untrue (like Jessica doing well) to get people to say he's blind.
> 
> Natasha has lots of training, Jessica has lots of strength. When they shake hands, there's a careful balance of "let them know what I can do, but don't hurt them" happening, which Matt reads as crunching cartilage.
> 
> The mission Nat asks Jessica for help with is finding Wanda and Pietro. The related mission that gave them the trail to follow was the Rings operation (see Body of Code for more).
> 
> Skye knows of the Kree from people who fought Ronan, a rogue Kree bent on genocide, and Yondu, who was a gladiatorial slave to their empire. Thus, she's only ever heard the bad-dangerous-scary parts and inherently does not trust them or anything they touch.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "If my son dies, your little girl will rip this entire planet to shreds beneath your feet just to send you to Hell."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Family needs help, Family answers.

“Matt, there’s been a situation,” Trip said. Even over the phone, Matt could hear the pain and exhaustion. “Skye was kidnapped. Technically, the whole Bus was taken, but given the particulars of what they were able to get out before the plane went dark, we think it was targeted, at her, and at a witness they were transporting.”

“Who,” Matt ground out. It wasn’t a question, it was an order. Foggy gasped from across the office, and Matt walked to the door, firmly shutting it and locking it.

“Daniel Whitehall, he’s-”

“A Nazi, Coulson told us.” Matt waved Foggy closer. Karen had taken off work early to spend some time with Ben and Doris, but Matt needed as much of his family nearby as he could get. “What does he want with my sister?”

“Is Skye..?”

Matt shook his head at Foggy. “Trip, I’m with Foggy, and I’m putting him on speaker. He’s Thomas’ godfather, anything that might put our ability to raise our son in danger is something he needs to know.”

“That’s fine, man, I trust you and to be honest, SHIELD doesn’t know I’m calling you. You aren’t on their radar, _at all_. The only brother of Skye’s who can be informed through official channels is in San Juan where we think Whitehall will take Skye, so he’s getting the briefing as a mission change update.” Trip sighed wetly. “She’s my partner, man, and I can’t get to her because her lunatic father cut my brachial artery open.”

“Focus on my voice, Trip. What. Does. Whitehall. Want. With. Skye.”

“I don’t know, exactly. She gave May a narrow window to send an encoded message, but the part we got was that San Juan is dangerous to anyone without a specific genetic marker. Also, that the Kree are involved.”

“The who?” Foggy coughed, clearly a little embarrassed. Matt put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Aliens, nasty ones. One of our only contacts in the greater galactic world used to be a gladiatorial slave for them.” Trip blew a shaky breath, sending a wave of crackling static through the line. “Also, the source of GH 325 was a Kree corpse. If anyone asks, you did not learn that from me. My clearance isn’t high enough to know that, and yours is lower than mine.”

“Skye is one of the few people to have taken that and not gone insane,” Matt said, drawing connections quickly. His mind raced, leaping from idea to idea, getting a terrible feeling, and then settling on the one part he could actually handle. “Trip, get me a plane to San Juan, with room for two other passengers.”

“Matt, what are you thinking?” Trip asked cautiously.

“I’m thinking I’m going to save my sister, and I need a plane to San Juan to do it. Get me that plane, Trip. Now.”

“On it, Diable.” He pronounced it the French way, dia-blay, and Matt chuckled despite himself. “Triplett out.”

Matt nodded and hung up, then made another call.

“Jessica, it’s Matt. Skye is in trouble, and I’m going to San Juan.”

“I can’t go with you,” she said immediately. Thankfully she wasn’t fighting the question of a blind man heading to a place he’d never been, to fight for a sister who could and often did kick his ass. “I have a thing, for Natasha. I mean, she hired me.”

“Not what I need. I’ll be leaving Thomas in New York.” Matt nodded to Foggy in a half-question. Foggy snorted, and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen.

“I don’t babysit.” Jessica’s tone was guarded.

“Not babysitting, body-guarding.”

Foggy cleared his throat. “I’ll be watching the kid, he means. You’ll be watching me. And probably Karen. She kinda lives in my guest room anyway, so it won’t be hard. Normally when the kidlet stays with me, he takes the pullout sofa, but if you want it, he’s not shy about bed sharing with Karen and me. I’ll need to go to the store for more food, do you have a preference on snacks?”

“I have a life, you know,” Jessica grumbled. It was halfhearted and they all knew it.

“Double your standard retainer for a week,” Matt said. “Plus meal expenses. _Proper_ meal expenses, not whatever normalized metabolism average you usually do. I want you sharp, and that means fed.”

“That’s…” Jessica drew in a sharp breath. “Matt, that’s more than you can afford, no offence.”

“Thomas’ education is free because his honorary cousin is Tony Stark’s son. My sister is paid more than enough to stay on top of our rent if we had it, which we _don’t_ , because her niece and nephew bought the building as a safe house when she moved in, and right now I’d give you a _kidney_ to make sure my family is all protected while I’m gone. The other option is I bundle everyone up and drop them at Avengers Tower, but I don’t think you’d go.”

There was a long pause.

 _“You as good as said she’s family_ ,” Foggy said under his breath from his office. Matt rolled his eyes. Jessica had been doomed to be adopted the moment Thomas had a sobbing meltdown over her lack of support. The fact she hadn’t noticed that yet made him wonder why she was in her line of work to start with.

“Jessica, please. I don’t often ask for favors, but I always repay them. Let me give you an absurd amount of money to stay with my friend who feeds people when he’s nervous, and my frankly adorable son who wants nothing more in life right now than to make you feel happiness.”

“If you insist,” she grumbled. “But you owe me, Murdock.”

Matt smiled at Foggy. “One more call. You’re sure you can take the firm for now?”

“Oh yeah. Bring our girl home, Matt.” Foggy’s heart went blub- **thump** on the word _our_. Matt didn’t mention it. Skye could do worse than Foggy Nelson.

<^>

Mack shook his head. He didn’t know how he let Triplett smooth talk him into this shit. But here he was.

Here being a runway at a small private airport-slash-helipad owned by Tony Stark, in a borrowed quinjet, also owned by Tony Stark, helping a guy dressed like El Diablo and two Russian thugs get strapped in.

“No, it’s… man, just look where I’m pointing!” he snapped. The two thugs went tense and hard, hands lingering on the buckles they’d just clasped.

The guy in the costume clicked his tongue. “Down, Enfado. You know the rules.”

“D’yavol…” the younger of the two growled.

“It would make her unhappy,” the other said quietly.

“Good job, Hielo.” The masked man nodded. “That’s right. It would make her unhappy if we fought. So we’re not fighting. Not yet. Not until we find the bastards.”

“And then?”

“I can’t make promises about her feelings,” the masked man said with a grin that soaked across his face like blood on a carpet. There was something unsettling about him. An eerie fuzziness, offset by the sharp sense of danger. “But I, personally, will be busy elsewhere.”

Mack shook the creepiness from his shoulders and clipped the safety harness in place.

“We’ll be in San Juan in about forty five,” he said. “Just do me a favor, and forget you ever saw me once we land.”

“Saw who?” said the masked man with a chuckle. “I see nobody.”

“Good, let’s keep it that way.”

<^>

Skye had kept her eyes moving ever since pressing a flashdrive into Jemma’s hand during her kidnapping. The force it would take to push through the locks Whitehall put on her beloved Bus would cripple it, but the drive could do it. From there, May could send a warning, she’d had enough time to tell her SO about Raina’s dire prophecy about the temple, and the connection to the Kree. She just had to hope that her battering ram could buy them enough time, and look for a way to escape.

She’d tracked the path they’d taken, even as Ward looped and circled back. She’d also counted exits, guards, and guns. All of it was data, and data was Skye’s meat and bread, the raw clay of her craft, the tool of her trade. _Data_ was Skye’s _bitch_.

Ward noticed that. He seemed impressed. She didn’t respond.

“How’s your marksmanship? Improved any?” he asked. Trying to get her into conversation. Trying to find an opening. Something he could use to get at her emotions.

Something she currently didn’t have to worry about.

“Cool under pressure, I see May’s been teaching you control.”

“Best teacher I ever had,” Skye quipped. She felt him flinch and dimly accepted the satisfied endorphins of a successful hit. “I don’t mean to be rude, but we’ve played this game of Kidnap Skye before, and it didn’t end well for you.”

“That’s alright,” he said, and made that soft, sad smile that used to weaken her knees and make her heart swell. “I just want to keep my promise.”

She was about to ask what he meant, he’d made lots of unkept promises in his time at SHIELD, when he cut her bonds and opened a door. Inside, the man who called himself her father was seated on a sofa. She didn’t feel her feet move, it felt more like a movie, where the camera sweeps in, but soon she was standing there, arms length from one half of her origin. The man she’d been seeking her entire adult life. His nervous rambling and shaking hands betrayed he was feeling the same swamp of emotions Skye had, deep in the locked box she’d labeled “feelings” before leaving the Bus.

“Let me start over. I’m Cal, I’m your father. Thank you for meeting me.”

“Are you serious?” Skye asked. The question felt cold coming off her lips, but she meant it. She needed to know what sort of man Cal was, where his weak spots were. That meant knowing if the tone-deaf thanks were sincere or gloating. “I was kidnapped off a plane at gunpoint.”

“You’re right, of course, you’re right.” Cal’s nervous fidgeting worsened. It had been sincere then. “I’m nervous, I hope it’s alright to admit that to you. It’s just this is a big moment, you know? Father, daughter, family reunion. I wanted it to be perfect. I had plans. Those little almond cookies, flowers, maybe? Not like this. Not here.”

Skye nodded. She could see his logic, even understand his emotions, for all she had put away her own.

“I don’t know what you know about me,” he began, and Skye shook her head.

“You’re a monster, a murderer who leaves a trail of death wherever you go.”

“That’s… true. But you have to understand,” Cal pleaded.

“I wasn’t done,” Skye said, firm, but not ungentle. “You’re a father, not just to me, but to children who felt unloved and unwanted. To Raina and her friends. You’re a man in pain. Your child was stolen from you, and I cannot begin to know what I would do if that happened to me.”

Her breath hitched and she paused, swallowing the fear and pain that lived just under her collarbone, that had ever since she looked into Thomas’s eyes and realized she was a mother.

“I wanted to say…” Cal broke off, and Skye nodded to the chairs. He sat, and she perched on the arm of the sofa, close enough for comfortable speaking, far enough to buy her space to maneuver if this went wrong. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you. I’m sorry I didn’t get to sing you to sleep, to watch your first steps, and teach you about the stars. I know I’m a terrible disappointment, but I’m here now. I’ll take care of you.”

“If you want to take care of me, get me out of here,” she said.

“Oh, maybe I wasn’t clear, you’re where you’re supposed to be. This is your destiny. You will become something… amazing.”

“I know you believe that,” Skye said, weighing choices in her head. Measuring risks. “Maybe if things were different, I’d believe it too. Maybe I’d take the risk, see if I can be better than I am. But there’s one very important thing you don’t know about me, and it changes everything.”

“You’re my daughter, I made it my purpose in life to know everything about you.” Cal’s face darkened and he stood. She could see the killer moving in his eyes, she had to act fast. “I know where you were born, I know where you were raised, I know SHIELD took you from me.”

“I have a son.”

Cal stopped, mid-step. “What?”

“I have a son. His name is Thomas Yukio Murdock-Barnes, and he’s my _everything_. You owe him his mother back, even if you want nothing else to do with him, because this meeting would have gone very differently if I didn’t have my own child. I know why you are the way you are. I would kill for Thomas. I would torture. I might even work for evil fucks like Whitehall, if it brought him back to me. I can forgive you for everything you’ve done in my name, but _only_ because I would do the same for him.”

“I have a grandson?” Cal blinked. “But... you’re so young!”

“He _is_ adopted,” Skye admitted. “Which changes nothing in my mind, but it does change one very salient fact about what I know the plan here to be.”

“Which is?”

“Thomas did not test positive for the genetic marker I have, the one Raina has. My sweet, intelligent, brave little boy was not deemed _worthy_ by the Kree. If you free whatever is down in that temple, I’ll live. My _son_ will die. And if my son dies, your little girl will rip this entire planet to shreds beneath your feet just to send you to Hell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Diable: French for Devil.  
> El Diablo: Spanish for The Devil.  
> Enfado: Spanish for Anger, Vladimir's codename.  
> D'yavol: Russian for Devil.  
> Hielo: Spanish for Ice, Anatoly's codename.
> 
> Notes:  
> For the record, HERO knows about Matt's relationship to Skye, but officially SHIELD does not. SHIELD, officially, only knows that Agent Skye Barnes has an enhanced civilian asset who answers to Daredevil. Given the overlap there's a decent amount of willful deafness involved in that, but it's the story they go with.
> 
> Trip is on medical leave because a sane, non-bootstrapped agency doesn't put agents in the field less than a week after they almost bleed to death.
> 
> Yondu is the mentioned contact, he grew up in Kree battle arenas and has an understandably dim view of them.
> 
> Jessica has an enhanced metabolism to support her enhanced strength. It's part of how she's as skinny as she is when most of her fluid intake is the empty carbs of booze. Matt realizes this, and that she shorts herself, because he's been in her apartment and knows what food she stocks. (High calorie value food like peanut butter, cheap snacks like chips and donut-holes, etc.)
> 
> Mack likes being by-the-book, Mack does not like rule bending. Mack is the lawful good character who somehow gets roped into helping his chaos-hobo friends. This isn't a bad thing, just a thing that makes conflict. Also, he doesn't know Matt's blind, which makes Vladimir and Anatoly irritated by his word choices. Matt just likes trolling him.
> 
> "I'll be busy elsewhere." is a phrase borrowed from Ysabetwordsmith's original superhero setting, which roughly translates to "I'm not comfortable crossing some lines, as a hero, but you're a villain and I'll ignore what lines you cross in this case."
> 
> Skye learned hardcore compartmentalization from Bucky, and is using it to survive an emotionally overcharged situation. Yeah, this will give her a crash later, but for now it's worth it.
> 
> In this canon, Monster is not mutually exclusive with Family, or even with Good Person. Skye is willing to see the good in him, because she's had practice seeing good in people who gladly claim the title Monster. That does not mean she condones his violence, only that it isn't a "hard no" for her.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “You want temple down? We take temple down,” Vladimir said with a small, prideful laugh. "Give us two hundred American dollars and... maybe an hour. Hour and a half tops.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rescues are launched and Fate takes a kinder turn for Cal.

The chamber was damp, cool with cave air, and swirling with the smell of dust. It also housed ten people, one of whom was only technically there. Based on what Trip had said, Matt would bet Fitz was busy scouring the Earth for Jemma, who was, theoretically, still with the plane.

“Eyes on me, everyone,” Bucky said. Matt nodded and braced himself in parade rest. “This is no longer a SHIELD mission, it’s HERO. From here on in, we’re breaking rules. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Anyone who wants to leave now gets plausible deniability, no questions asked, no shame in walking away now.”

Nobody moved. Matt tracked the heartbeats, getting to know them. The people in this room were his team. They would help him get Skye back. He pushed that knowledge into the devil at the back of his mind, the one clambering to get out and lay into someone. These people were off limits. These people were allies.

“Alright then. Introductions. We’re using codenames on this one, and agent status doesn’t matter. I’m Coach, and I’ll be team lead.”

“Question,” Matt interrupted. “Why?”

“I’m handler for most of our fighting force already, and they call me Coach, so I’m using that name.”

“I’m stepping down as team lead because I’m compromised. Coach has more training in compartmentalizing than I do, so he’s less likely to make a mistake,” Coulson explained. Turning to the Russians, he continued the introductions. “I’m Byzantine, I’ll be keeping SHIELD off our back if anything… noisy… happens.”

“Call me Recluse,” said one of the women Matt didn’t know. Vladimir’s heart thudded loudly, and Matt suppressed an eye roll. Of course, he’d heard Bucky’s protegee had struck up a romance with the Russian crime lord. He hadn’t expected it to matter yet, though. “I’ll be secondary team lead if we divide our forces any. These are my team.”

“Kestrel, I’m really useful for tight spots, trick shots, and getting high.”

“I’m Mantis, I spy, lie, and look damn good doing it.”

“I’m sorry about my teammates, they think they’re funny,” said the last woman. “Kestrel is our security circumvention specialist, she’s bendy enough to go through small gaps, has the best aim of us, and no fear of heights. Mantis is our grifter, she manipulates people and steals their secrets. I’m Finch. I’m about forty percent of our squad’s social graces. All of us can fight with whatever comes to hand, but whereas Kestrel is a range specialist, and if you see Mantis coming she’s not aiming at you, I’m better hand to hand.”

Matt smiled. “If you couldn’t guess from the outfit, I’m Devil. I’m also a melee fighter, using batons. I have enhanced senses, which might come in useful. If I tell you I hear something, or know someone is in a room, believe me. Next to me are Enfado and Hielo.”

“Yellow?” Mantis asked.

“Hielo,” Recluse corrected. “It’s Spanish for ice. We lived in Texas, how did you not know that?”

Mantis made a very quiet unhappy sound, and Matt decided to move things along.

“Enfado and Hielo are here because they’ve successfully taken GH 325. If anyone needs to go into the hot zone, it’s going to need to be them.”

“Speaking of which,” Coulson said with a gesture at the open pit in the middle of the chamber, “before Skye got us the message, we’d established that electronics don’t work down there. We have biologically powered torches, glorified glow sticks, and a map to the temple, but you’ll be working with limited supplies. Basically, whatever you can scrounge up that doesn’t have a battery.”

Anatoly and Vladimir looked at each other. Matt couldn’t read this sort of communication, the long built silent language of brothers, but he knew what they were weighing.

“We’ll be fine,” Anatoly said.

“You want temple down? We take temple down,” Vladimir said with a small, prideful laugh. “Give us two hundred American dollars and... maybe an hour. Hour and a half tops.”

“This is a populated area, no high explosives,” Coulson warned them. “The city runs under the entire island, you could cause a collapse. The only acceptable number of losses is zero, a big fat goose egg.”

“How deep is the hole?” Anatoly wondered out loud.

“Over a hundred feet, we think,” Bucky provided.

“We flood it,” Anatoly said firmly. “Small boom, out under ocean, no risk.”

Bucky hesitated. Matt put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “He’s here for her,” he said quietly, at the edge of super-soldier hearing. “Trust him.”

“We’ll leave you some cash,” Bucky said. “Everyone else, with me, we have a rescue to do.”

<^>

Calvin had been waiting for this a long time. Said things, done things, been someone he wasn’t proud of, just to get to this moment. Everything was going great. His daughter understood why he had to do what he did, he had a grandson who sounded like a real peach, and the man who tore his wife to shreds was going to die by his hand.

Until Whitehall had Daisy dragged in.

“I needed insurance that SHIELD wouldn’t blow us out of the sky,” said Ward. Cal had opinions about the young man, he didn’t seem all there, and he was uncomfortably interested in Daisy.

“And yet, you gave the order for our people not to fire on them. An order I had to counter myself.”

Cal kept his eyes on Whitehall, the man was like a snake, too dangerous not to be observed, but he heard a tiny, involuntary gasp from his daughter, and added it to the list of sins Whitehall would pay for. A list which grew when the man pointed a gun at Daisy, forcing her to pick up the obelisk. A choice she should have been allowed to make for herself. She would, of course, it was destiny, but no _person_ should have forced her hand. He gave her a small nod, and shifted his scalpel in his hand.

The fight was short. Brutal. But it ended with failure. Cal bit his lip to keep from weeping at the sting of it. Yet another time he failed to protect Daisy. The pain blossomed like some flesh eating plant, roots growing deep in his chest.

“I hope you’re as special as your mother,” Whitehall said to Daisy, with the absolute gall of a man who believes he has won.

“If my daughter weren’t here, I would tear you and your men to shreds.”

“Please don’t hold back on my account,” Daisy said. “You know I’ve seen your work before. At least he’s a deserving canvas.”

Whitehall sneered, and turned on Ward. “And what about you? Where do you fit in?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Raina asked. “It’s love. He thinks if he helps Skye attain her destiny, she’ll see him for who he really is.”

“Oh, how sweet,” Whitehall mocked. Cal looked to Daisy to gauge her opinion. She seemed surprised, but uninterested. He filed that in his mind. If Ward got pushy, he’d have to kill him, but until then, he could be useful. “Too bad that’s not going to happen. Nor are you going to get your revenge for what I did to your wife.”

The next thing Cal knew, he was on the floor, in crippling agony, his precious baby girl tied to a chair as Whitehall gloated about how he would hurt her, the same as he hurt Jiaying. It was a relief when some commotion drew him away.

A dark shadow flicked over Cal’s vision. It resolved through the pain into a man in red, who knelt by Daisy.

“Skye, are you alright?” he asked, cutting her free. Her arms flew around him and Cal watched the walls his daughter had around her fall. “Easy, easy now. I’m here, and I brought backup.”

“Who?”

“Enfado and Hielo are handling the hidden city, Byzantine is keeping it quiet, and Death is going by Coach because he has a flock of very scary young women eliminating resistance with extreme prejudice.”

“Good. Help me get this shock device off Cal.”

“Do we like him now?” the man asked, but he was already running a light hand over Cal’s neck. The pain abruptly ceased. “Hi, I’m the Devil. Your daughter is my sister and if you hurt one single hair on her head or make her cry, I’m going to turn your face into something that makes Goya look like an Instagram filter.”

Cal blinked at the oddly cheerful tone in the threat. “I’m Cal. Same to you?”

The man smiled. “Good! We’re agreed. Let’s go.”

<^>

It was easy to take up point with her brother beside her. Easier still to move light and easy on silent feet, knowing her other brother and his bevy of deadly gymnasts were clearing out Hydra’s goons. Less easy was the restless, prowling beast caged in the chest of her biological father. Cal, her father, the murderer, and the man Raina spoke of so softly… her chest ached at the pressure of trying to fit it all in one box. Now, though, he was in hunting mode.

“Whitehall,” he growled, lunging out of their tight V formation. Skye whirled and Matt kick-jumped off a wall to land between the two men.

Whitehall drew a gun and fell to the ground.

Cal raced to him, frantic and mad in the eyes.

Skye took a deep breath, looked out the window and waved. She couldn’t see Bucky, but she knew where he was.

“He was mine,” sobbed Cal. “MINE.”

“He was Hydra, someone else had a prior claim,” Matt said coldly.

“Who could possibly have lost as much as I did?” Cal asked, and Skye thought that about summed up the failing of his character.

“My brother was held by Hydra, broken, torn apart like Whitehall tore Mom apart,” Skye said slowly. She dragged the words out, unsheathing them like the daggers they were. “Then put back together, as a weapon. Tortured, broken, forced to serve the people he’d fought. Sent to kill his friends, his family. For _years_ , decades. Long before you even _met_ my mother. A part of him stayed alive, _awake_ , through that. A part of him fought for his freedom. When I met him, he was… broken. Free, but broken. He encouraged me to keep looking for you, to keep hoping to find you, because he knew he couldn’t ever get back the people he lost.”

Cal’s face went on a journey, emotions cascading down his features like rain. He was almost childlike in his inability to lie with his face. He turned to Matt.

“Not me,” Matt said, waving his hands. “I was only brainwashed from nine to eleven, and it was one guy, not an evil empire. She collects broken people, fixes us up, makes things better.”

“Speaking of brothers, can you take Cal to rendezvous with our Russian friends? He knows the city better than anyone, and we need to keep it out of Hydra’s hands.”

“Daisy, baby, you can’t fight your destiny,” Cal said, almost gently.

“My name is Skye,” she said firmly. “I chose it myself, and I like it. It means things to me, to the family I built. Later, we can mourn your Daisy, but I’m _not her_. I didn’t get to live the life she would have had. For now, I need you to help me keep the same bastard organization that killed that life, that killed Mom, from ever laying a hand on the kind of power the Kree buried here.”

He looked at her, mulish jaw set, eyes ablaze with an unhealthy sort of gleam. He looked almost fevered, on the edge of making bad choices.

“Please, Dad. My options here are recruit you or shoot you. I’d really rather not shoot you, but I will if I have to. You pose too much threat to my family.”

 _“I'm_ your family.”

“Yes. But you don’t share well and I built a bigger family than you can imagine. My loyalty goes first to the people who put in the effort to _be_ family, who actively improved my life, and second to anyone else. I want to give you a chance to be in that first category, but you aren't there yet. Help me out here, Dad.”

“I don’t know…”

“Hielo has a crush on her,” Matt added. Skye waved her hands in a ‘what the fuck’ gesture. He grinned. “He knows almost everything there is to know about her that doesn’t cross into stalker territory.”

Cal broke, his whole body crumpling like a paper towel. It was strange after so many tightly controlled people, to see someone who sent every signal at full volume.

“Right, lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Codenames:  
> Coach: Bucky  
> Byzantine: Coulson  
> Recluse: Haley Graham  
> Kestrel: Wei Wei Yong  
> Mantis: Joanne Charis  
> Finch: Mina Hoyt  
> Devil: Matt  
> Enfado: Vladimir  
> Hielo: Anatoly
> 
> Notes:  
> Bucky's codename comes from the frequent cover Theta uses as a team of jet-setting gymnasts and their coach. Byzantine is a term for complexity, as the Byzantine empire was known for complex bureaucracy. Team Theta were recruited by Clint and Nat, and as such have bug/bird callsigns. Matt gave Vladimir and Anatoly their names, and his second language is Spanish. Enfado means "anger" and Hielo means "ice".
> 
> Skye isn't upset by the idea of violence done in her name, as long as said violence happens to Bad People (TM), which Hydra count as.
> 
> Goya is an artist known for disturbing and graphically violent imagery of demons and pagan gods. Instagram filters are usually used to make people look prettier or cuter. This is a visual reference because Matt's a troll and also he likes throwing people off his blindness.
> 
> Cal's big problem, as far as Skye is concerned, is that he's selfish. She doesn't have an issue with violence, given her family, or even the lack of guilt he has over said violence. What she doesn't like is that he only ever thinks of his pain, and the things he wants and has to do to get what he wants.
> 
> Anatoly has a huge one-sided crush on Skye and everyone knows it. Skye hardly thinks about it, because they've already discussed that she doesn't return the feeling and wants to be kind by letting it die off naturally. Matt, however, thinks it's fucking hilarious, and knows Tolya has dirt Cal will want.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “Oh Skye’s mad. She understands, but she is pissed at you,” Matt said. “It’s maim, torture OR kill, not all three."


	10. What We Become

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite all their efforts, the Obelisk opens.

It was strange, Matt reflected, that he had ended up here. Strange that he’d leave New York, strange that he’d be following a crime boss down a narrow hallway in a possibly stolen yacht. Strange that he’d be trusting that crime boss to lead him, since he and boats apparently did not get along.

“This is awful and I hate it,” he said again.

“When we get to the cabin, I can help fix it,” Cal said soothingly. The man cycled through an average of four emotions a minute by Matt’s count, but lately he’d been doing concern more than the others. “I was a doctor, you know. I worked in a clinic in China, that’s where Daisy was born.”

“She asked you not to call her that.”

“She _said_ my daughter Daisy died,” Cal corrected, voice hardening. “She might be right. I think maybe Calvin Johnson died too, that night. But _my Daisy_ was born in China.”

“You can stay here,” Vladimir said. “When we reach the coordinates on the map, you lower the package onto the seafloor, release the cables, and go back to shore. The captain of the boat has already been paid, and he will not talk. There is audio equipment on the package, to tell if it has settled on the seabed, or if you need to shift it. D’yavol, you do that. No sloppy work, only stable, understand?”

“What is this package?” Matt asked, sighing as Cal did something to his wrist that made his stomach settle. “A bomb?”

“No, no,” Vladimir scoffed. “It would be rude to the local gangs to import through our channels, and we don’t have time to buy something to blast through rock. Is shipping container with a plasma drill. A small one. I’ll be inside, drill through into the tunnels, set up timed lock poppers on the container door, go through the tunnel, and meet Tolya at the cave. Lock poppers blow door, ocean goes down into tunnels, no more city problem.”

“You know, Hydra also has a plasma drill. Will you be able to get there first?” Cal asked.

“One, Hydra is going through many meters of volcanic rock, I am going through limestone. _Thin_ limestone. Two, where do you think I got it? Very easy to steal from people being shot at.” Vladimir made a pshawing sound, and Matt chuckled. Under the Russian’s breath he could hear mutters about the commonness of plasma drills and the stupidity of civilians.

“You do know you’re asking us to drop you in an unpressurized container into the ocean, yeah?” Matt asked. “I hear that sort of thing is bad for you.”

Vladimir paused, holding his breath. “Svetka is turning one soon. I owe your family. I owe my daughter a better man for a father. I owe her a safer world to grow up in.”

There was a thunking sound somewhere on the deck. Matt held his breath, wanting to give the Russian time to adjust his worldview to having shared this sort of vulnerability.

“I pay my debts,” Vladimir said, voice hard again. “Come to the deck when you can stand without retching.”

“Interesting man,” Cal said once Vladimir had left. “How did you two meet again?”

“I threw his assistant off a roof, wrecked a restaurant he owned, and punched a trail of destruction through his empire,” Matt said. “Then Skye and his brother sat down in a neutral location and acted like rational adults, thank God. He’s a good friend.”

“I’m not sure if I’m worried what my daughter’s gotten into, or really glad that at least she isn’t too upset by what I did for vengeance.”

“Oh Skye’s mad. She understands, but she **is** pissed at you,” Matt said. “It’s maim, torture OR kill, not all three. I leave them alive and sane enough to learn from their mistakes, Death makes it fast and painless. _You_ cross the streams and throw in some sadism. That bothers her. Come on, we’re at the spot.”

<^>

Raina was furious. First, Cal had turned on her, sided with his precious daughter when they were so close to the temple she could taste it. He knew what it meant to her, how much she wanted it. But no, Skye’s rejection of the blessings she’d been given mattered more.

No problem, Raina didn’t need Cal anymore. She had Whitehall, and he had the Obelisk. When the shooting started, he’d passed her the case and sent her to the basement, to the drill.

Which was being stolen. She’d tried to fight them, but a strong blow had split her brow and blinded her with her own blood. She had to curl into a ball and pretend unconsciousness to protect herself and the Obelisk. When the noise and shouting died down, the drill was gone.

“NO!” Her half growled shout of protest drew attention from one of Whitehall’s men. She grabbed the man by the collar, flattered him, and told him to finish the job the drill had started. It wasn’t as smooth as she liked to be, but the man responded well to compliments of his strength and dedication… as Whitehall had called it, his readiness to comply. Fortunately, most of the distance had been covered already with the high-power laser of the plasma drill. There was only a foot or two of black rock between her and the temple. The man broke through that easily enough with a normal jackhammer, although he did fall with it. Small sacrifice, Raina thought as she lowered herself down on a rope rig, Obelisk tucked under one arm, the glowing sigils providing light for her.

The man hadn’t died in the fall, although his leg was doing something strange. Cal would know what was wrong, would try to fix it, but Raina didn’t have time to mimic that pitiful fool.

“If you’re not going to be helpful, get out of my way,” she told him, lightly pushing his shoulder. He turned, revealing eyes glossed over with an inky blue-black. “Oh, my. Well this changes things, doesn’t it? Take me there.”

She held up the Obelisk, both pass and scepter, showing her right to be there, and her worthiness to be obeyed. The man moved without blinking, although there was a wet squelching sound when he walked. Raina smiled.

Things were finally back on the right track.

<^>

“Well, I think I’m on the right track,” Skye said, touching the tacky blood of a boot print. It reflected the sickly green from her chemical light, fresh enough to catch her eye.

She didn’t have coms to the surface, but it felt better to talk out loud. Above her, Haley Graham was waiting with a first aid kit, a radio, and road flares. The kit was for if Skye came back up with injuries, or an injury. The radio was for if Skye needed to report something right away after she got back out. The road flares were a combination timekeeper and guidepost. Each flare lasted fifteen minutes. Every fifteen minutes, Haley would fire another into the hole, giving Skye a light to move towards. When she ran out of flares, she would radio in and report Skye MIA, and get the rest of the team out. The box had held four flares when they agreed on that. She had an hour to find Raina, and whoever had left the boot prints. Well, half an hour, so she could get back.

Good thing the footprints were wet.

Skye blew out a breath, and rounded the corner, slamming into a hard shoulder. A Hydra goon looked down at her with blacked-out eyes, empty face reflecting only her own fear.

Skye screamed, then bit it off, glad Matt had left the building, since that would have had him running to her side, and damn the risks. At least the soldier seemed unmoved by her panic, and she poked his arm, seeing if he would react. He didn’t, but another poke on the other side rocked him a bit, and she noticed his right leg had broken above the knee.

“You are not okay, there,” Skye said, hiding her own whimper of empathy in sarcasm. “Where’s Raina?”

She tilted her head, then reflexively ducked as someone else ran in.

“Tolya?”

“I heard screaming,” he said, gun raised and ready. “That man hurt you?”

“No, pretty sure he’s being mind controlled. His femur is sticking out through his knee, and he’s not reacting to it except mechanically.”

“That’s different, then,” Tolya said and lowered his gun, just as Vladimir came up behind him.

“You were not at the meeting place,” Vladimir chided. “Ropot, good to see you. I told D’yavol he worried too much.”

Skye rolled her eyes at the obvious lie, and signaled for quiet. Years of listening to Matt listening to things had honed her instinct for sound. She waved at them to follow.

The temple was smaller than she expected as she slipped in past tall but narrow stone doors. Raina was holding out the Obelisk towards a stone pillar.

“I can’t let you do this Raina.”

“Just because you rejected your birthright doesn’t mean I reject mine. I _wanted_ us to do this together. I wanted us to be _sisters_.”

Vladimir scoffed. “If you want to be her sister, you ask, and then be glad you got the chance to choose before being _made_ family, unlike most of us. Hers is not a family that resists expansion.”

“Yeah, Cal clearly is your Dad, and he wants to try being mine, there’s no need for this,” Skye waved at the space around them, “to have a family. Just stop the… the whatever it is.”

“Oh Skye,” Raina sighed, and she really did seem sad. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Now relax, this shouldn’t hurt.”

She released the Obelisk, and it floated to the pillar. The doors slid shut, and a glowing blue crystal emerged. "Raina, what's happening, what are you doing?"

“We finally learn what we become,” Raina yelled, joy in her voice.

“NO!” Skye shouted. Her mind went to Thomas, so far away from his mother. It went to Matt and Bucky and Coulson, who had come to rescue her. Her family, distant and more a twisted vine than a tree, but valued and loved all the same. She would lose them. She would lose them and it would be her own fault.

She felt a hand in hers. Tolya’s. As a blue mist snaked out of the crystal, she saw his mouth making the shapes of words, although her ears were filled with the rumble of her own heart. Matt was right, it was like a rock-slide.

No, there _was_ a rock slide. One that went up her legs, covering her in a dark, basaltic cocoon that glued her feet to the floor.

“Screw this, I wanna live!” Vladimir shouted, and he shot the crystal. It exploded outward, and Skye used the rest of her range of movement to haul both Ranskahovs to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Lock Poppers: very small bombs used by SHIELD agents to blow out locks.  
> Ropot: murmur or rumble, the closest translation to the idea of Skye's nickname from Matt.
> 
> Notes:  
> Matt's senses compensate somewhat for the loss of sight-based balance. This is nearly undone by being on a rocking boat. As a result, ships give Matt the spins.
> 
> In most non-disabled human adults, the chemical process in the brain causing an emotion lasts about 90 seconds, and the resultant feeling usually stays between 10 and 20 minutes. Cal has significant brain damage from a combo of traumatic loss and shooting up with dangerous strength enhancers. As a result he literally feels about six times faster than a regular person, which causes the volatile mood swings he suffers. Matt's using a ton of normally unconscious cues to map Cal's mental state, so he can keep him more even.
> 
> For clarity's sake, Raina isn't actually able to use mind control, but she's very good at manipulation and most of Whitehall's men have been put through a hypnotic conditioning process that responds to the word "comply". Raina is copying how Whitehall controls his men, and thus hijacking the conditioning with her manipulative skill.
> 
> Haley is just enough of a Slytherin, and just distant enough from Skye, that she's able to give the sort of backup that's willing to pull the plug if things look bad enough. Normally, the extended Family of the Bodies Verse crew lives by the motto "Never Leave A Man Behind" but this could, as far as Skye knows, end the world if not shut down hard. Skye is grateful for Haley's ability to cut her off after a certain time and take the fallout.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “My brother would be better in another time, but he has this one, and he knows how to keep love like that from driving a man insane."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Obelisk, some things change, and others stay the same.

Thump

Thu- **THUMP**

Thu- **thump**

Thu-thump

The sound of a heartbeat rang like the echo of a gunshot, but it was one of the most beautiful things Matt had ever heard. He had nearly strangled Recluse when he learned of her deal with his sister, but fortunately, Anatoly and Vladimir had managed to get Skye back to the exit point before the water was too deep to maneuver through. Recluse and Vladimir were doing some sort of weird performative not-caring at each other, but Matt and Tolya focused on Skye, who had apparently freed the three of them from a rock casing that tried to eat them, then passed out. She hadn’t found Raina, but the temple was both flooded and structurally unsound from whatever method Skye used to break them out. Tolya was vague about the whole thing, and Matt couldn’t bring himself to mind as he listened to the heart of his sister.

“I brought you some tea,” Cal said, sitting down beside Matt. The quinjet hadn’t been big enough for everyone who ended up needing a ride back to New York, so Tony had sent them a jet with a bed and a full set of medical supplies.

“You’re a lot like her, you know,” Matt said. “Angry, but honest. Blunt, even. She’s always been the right kind of angry.”

“There’s a right kind?”

“Oh yeah, the kind that makes you _do_ things. That makes you want to stand up and punch injustice in the eye. The kind of anger that lets you be kind to the people no one else is kind to, because fuck society telling you who to love. Most heroes in this world have a deep well of that anger in them. But it’s an anger that _you_ use, not an anger that uses you.”

“We having the Monster talk?” Bucky asked, edging around the bed. “I’d be open to an addition to the club, if he plays by our rules.”

“Monster talk?”

Matt chuckled. He’d been thrown by the idea at first, too. “Our family has lots of monsters in it. Good Monsters, who scare the Bad Monsters and protect the innocent people. The term was coined by some of the children of the extended clan. As they put it, all monsters are scary, capable, and able to put the soft parts of them in a box while they hurt people. Good Monsters, though, have _target selection_.”

“They only don’t care when they hurt bad people,” Bucky clarified. “We totally break when we think too hard about hurting good people, which is why we have non-monsters in the family; to help us survive what made us Monsters. That’s how Skye became my sister, helping me through the break when I looked at my casualty count. Well, and cyber warfare.”

“I’ve only really cared about not hurting Dais-- Skye, ever since I lost her. Maybe before? I cared about not hurting Jiaying, her mother, and I had professional pride in never having broken my oath to do no harm…” Cal went quiet. “It didn’t _break_ me, the way she said it would break her. It just gave me permission to… to, uh.”

“To let the Devil out,” Matt supplied. Cal sniffed wetly, and Matt caught the scent of salt water. The tears didn’t give him a good idea what Cal was feeling, though, they just smelled salty.

“Tissue?” Bucky offered, and Matt gave him a small smile. “We don’t have many born Monsters, mostly our group is people who had their human parts shaved off, either by events or on purpose. Victoria is probably your best choice for a mentor.”

Cal made a confused sound, and Matt tipped his head, letting Bucky know he didn’t know who that was either.

“Assassin’s Club member,” Bucky told Matt. “You wouldn’t know her. But she’s one of the more sane ones because she didn’t have to be broken down and remade to do that job, just taught how to do it efficiently. She’s not _unable_ to form emotional bonds, she just doesn’t do it involuntarily most of the time, and she’s very selective about it.”

“I don’t know if I’m cut out to be an assassin,” Cal said nervously. “My control these days is… not the best.”

Matt could hear the creak of metal on bone as Bucky shrugged, and the mild whir of servos and motors. “C’mon, I’ll give you the rundown on our rules, we can see if this is even something you want, before looking too far down the path of how to get it.”

They left and Matt stifled a laugh.

“Are they gone?” Skye whispered, well below average hearing volume.

“Yes, they’re gone. Why are we letting your dad think you’re in a coma?”

“He’s… complicated. I need time, and he needs reassurance. We can’t get both unless he’s willing to take it from someone else. So, I took myself out of the equation. Not forever, just until we’re home, and I can have backup.”

“Rest, Skye, you really did pass out, and almost drown.”

She mumbled sleepily, but her hand found his and wrapped around it. He smiled at that small gesture, the seeking, the I-don’t-want-to-lose-you. As if Skye could lose him that easily. He feathered a kiss on her already sleeping brow.

“Sleep well, Sis. I have watch.”

<^>

Vladimir was going mad. That was the only explanation that made sense. He’d thought he was just relieved to survive, and to see the beautiful Recluse again, coming so close to death can disrupt a man’s mind. But that should have faded. Instead, he was only getting worse.

They were like flashes, lights or shadows at the edges of his vision when he looked at someone. They had colors, but the colors did not seem to have any base in reality. Death’s was a bright, butter yellow ribbon that darkened to a caramel brown. The Devil surely should have had red, but instead had blue, a pleasing, light color, that wafted like cotton candy being sculpted.

And the man they had recruited, the father of the Devil’s sister, had oozing black and cutting scarlet. He knew nothing of the man, save that he was a doctor, that he did admirably well on the ship keeping the Devil from collapsing, and that he had made the woman who had given them new life. Surely the intrusive visions were wrong, but Vladimir could not ignore the dread he felt. He had to tell someone.

Not Ropot, nor D’yavol, they were too close to it. Zhnets was an option, but by the time he’d decided he had to warn someone, the killer had already taken the other man under his wing. Vladimir looked away quickly, he couldn’t bear to see the bright ribbons stained with tar and blood.

He considered Recluse and her sisters, they were capable and trustworthy. He, however, was not. Not yet. He hadn’t yet undone enough of his own evils to expect them to turn on someone untested for him.

Tolya wasn’t an option either. They both knew if the two of them started a fight here, they would not make it home.

That left Byzantine, and the curious scientist he was coaxing to eat. The leader’s colors were blue, silver, and red, glittering at the edge of Vladimir’s sight like reflections from a crystal. The scientist’s was a muted green, one that stayed stubbornly on the man’s left, instead of darting about or surrounding the edge of Vladimir’s vision as the others did.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

“Byzantine, I need a word?”

“Sorry, Enfado, this can’t wait. He hasn’t eaten in sixteen hours.” Byzantine looked truly saddened at the delay, but his tone was firm. “He’s missing Jemma.”

Vladimir vaguely recalled seeing him before, right before the explosion. The little fiery one, yes, her name had been Jemma, she had moved with him like they had but one heart to guide them. “Jemma is… his sister?” Vladimir guessed.

The young man let out a growl. 

“Ah. Not a sister. Your… ah,” he stuttered as his brain tried to find the word in English. Nothing felt right in English, th ough, the heartless language had no honey. “Ona tvoye solntse.”

The boy broke into a half-laugh that probably hid tears. The smile wasn’t in his eyes, and barely at his lips. “Yes, Jemma is my sunlight. She was on the plane when Skye was taken, I haven’t heard from her since then, we don’t even know if they’re alive or if Hydra shot them down, and the last thing we did was fight!”

“You never fight,” Byzantine said in shock.

“It was my fault, I pushed her too hard to choose me, to feel how I feel. And we separated mad and now we might not be able to patch it up.”

This, at least, Vladimir knew how to fix. “You know how to make food? Da? You make food, you take my brother food, and you ask him about the Devil’s sister. The food is to distract him with if his list of her virtues is too long, or detailed. Also, to keep your strength up.”

“He’s also caught in a one-sided, un-reciprocated, utterly hopeless love?”

“He always wanted to be a knight, serving the wisest king. Loving a noble princess he could never hope to have isn’t too different.” Vladimir sighed. “My brother would be better in another time, but he has this one, and he knows how to keep love like that from driving a man insane. You listen, and you will survive long enough to beg your Solntse for forgiveness.”

As the boy left, Byzantine turned to look over Vladimir. He could feel the appraisal, the blue lights warned him, cutting out onto his sight with sharp silver and leaving trails of red glitter so fine it might be dust motes.

“That was very kind of you. What did you need?”

“I think the new man… Cal, is,” Vladimir paused. “Not right. Slomlen.”

“A lot of us are broken….”

“It is not that he does not work, it is that there is something inside him that is **wrong** . Or something missing that should be. He feels… stained. Marked by blood, in ways no-one else here does.”

“I hear you,” Byzantine said, and then he straightened his face, one muscle at a time. “But I cannot act on that. There’s a conflict of interest, and it looks really bad to call him tainted or evil. I’ll keep looking, and I’m glad to know it isn’t just the jealousy talking, but I can’t do anything that pushes him away.”

“Just try,” Vladimir said.

<^>

The plane touched down at a small private airport for rich people, and Skye ‘woke’ during landing, when everyone was strapped in. It saved on some awkward questions, especially since _her_ first questions on ‘waking’ were about the team’s status and the plan for going their own ways. Darcy had apparently come to get Bucky and Theta, Natasha with her for Skye and Matt, and Ciara and McBain had arranged a car for the Russians, and Vladimir seemed very thankful to get back to his own terrifyingly precious bundle of joy. May was standing beside a dark vehicle that bore only passing resemblance to a civilian Jeep.

“Skye,” she said. Skye’s heart hit the bottom of her stomach.

“I’m sorry May. It was reckless, but necessary.”

“You do not have the luxury of reckless,” May said briskly. “Not if you want to be a Team Lead someday.”

“Team Lead?” Skye gaped at her mentor. Yeah, she’d been handed the Kilgrave mission for HERO, but that was only because the team had several other missions going at once, and they needed a local. “You think I could be a Team Lead?”

“If you don’t get yourself killed…” May pursed her lips, but in the proud way. “Maybe.”

“May!” She squealed and hugged May before Matt cleared his throat behind her. “Sorry. Thank you.”

“Go home, Skye,” May said, her face softening. “See your son. Jemma will probably be by tomorrow for extensive testing to make sure you’re okay. Until she clears you, no active duty. Understood?”

Skye made a face, but Matt put his gloved hand on her shoulder. “Understood,” he said. “Thank you, Agent May.”

May nodded. “Now go let Natasha fuss over you two. She’s finished patting down your stray, and she did win the coin flip.”

Skye quirked a brow, then looked at the car Natasha had brought, where, yes, Cal was busily putting his belt back on under Natasha’s watchful eye. His feet were in argyle socks that contrasted starkly with her understanding of him before this mission.

“Your niece is singularly terrifying,” Cal whispered to her while they sat in the back.

“Thank you,” Natasha said as she slipped into the driver’s seat. “Papa says you might join the Grandparents, how do you feel about being called Deda?”

Skye laughed. This, this was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Ropot: Rumble, Vladimir's nickname for Skye  
> D'yavol: Devil, Vladimir's name for Matt  
> Zhnets: Reaper (of the Grim variety), Vladimir's name for Bucky  
> Ona tvoye solntse: she is your sunshine (a Russian way of saying girlfriend/lover)  
> Slomlen: Broken, particularly the type of broken that cannot be fixed.  
> Deda: Grandpa, Grampy
> 
> Notes:  
> Skye has exceptional control over her heart rate, enough to use it as a limited form of communication with Matt by raising and lowering it. She shows amazing control in canon, I just heightened it on the theory she has more mentors here.
> 
> Victoria comes from the canon of RED (the movies) and is about the only person in the extended clan who wasn't given significant scars in training to become an assassin. She's only spontaneously developed feelings for someone once, her Life Partner, for whom she threw a mission and refused to kill. Everyone else she cares about was put on that list as a conscious choice after risk/benefit analysis.
> 
> Vladimir gained Truth Sight from his terragenesis that expresses people's inner selves as flashes of color significant to them or their culture. This makes translation hard, as not everyone feels the same about color. Cal for instance has red as a "good" color, as in in Chinese symbolism, since Cal adopted China as his home emotionally when he married Jiaying. Vladimir still sees it as blood.
> 
> Phil is aware he's compromised about Skye, because he wants to adopt her. If he points out that Cal is crazy or sociopathic, he looks like he's trying to remove a rival father.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “The problem is I killed his wife.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A much needed respite for our heroes, feat. Making Better Life Choices Than Canon.

Matt stopped them on the stairs. Nat said Foggy had brought Thomas back to the apartment, but he heard Karen and Jessica’s heartbeats as well.

“Someone needs to go explain Cal,” he said.

“Thomas adopts as easily as Darcy, that shouldn’t be a problem,” Skye said.

“Jessica is with them. I needed someone to watch over our family. Foggy’s a good sitter, but he’s not us.”

“Ah.” Matt waited patiently as Skye processed that. Her stomach rumbled and she sighed. “I need food, Cal, can you wait with Matt until I’ve gotten things worked out with Jess?”

“Who’s Jess? Sweetheart, you’re going to need specific care, recovery for your transformation. I need to be with you, to help you.”

Matt felt his sister go utterly still as her heartbeat silenced itself in fear. Her body was tense enough her bones creaked like a settling house before she blew out a breath. Objectively, it took three seconds, subjectively, it had been much longer.

“Jess is… rough. She’s got a history like Matt and Bucky, but she’s not healed up any. You’ll spook her if she’s not given warning, and set me back in helping her. As for transformation, all I need to know right now is can I eat my body weight in casserole? Because that’s what I plan to do.”

Cal grumbled, but didn’t protest as Skye took the stairs two at a time.

“Transformation?” Natasha asked once Skye was out of earshot.

“The Diviner in the Temple, it releases a gas that causes a process called terrigenesis. A cocoon forms, the body inside changes, unlocks the true potential of dormant genes, and when that’s done, the cocoon breaks. She was _meant_ to be in the Temple, to get her birthright.” Cal was starting to seem fevered in his speaking, so Matt coughed loudly and changed the topic. He wanted to know more, of course, but he needed Cal to be relaxed enough to be safe near Thomas.

“So there’s four people you’ll be meeting. Thomas is our son. Yes, he’s adopted. No, that doesn’t change anything. Don’t upset him or Skye will cut you out of her life. Foggy is my best friend, and the second partner of our law firm. He’s nice, and he’s been stress-cooking. Eat what he offers you, it will be worth it. Karen is our secretary, she’ll be the one who looks like she’s been crying. She’s also nice, but if you threaten anyone in our home, she’ll make you wish you hadn’t, probably with words. _Probably._ Jessica….”

Matt paused. How to explain Jessica.

“Has Matt told you how Good Monsters fight Bad Monsters?” Natasha said. Cal stiffened and nodded, his body weight making the step creak. “Jessica was caught by a Bad Monster. It… _offends_ Good Monsters that someone like him exists, let alone was able to hurt someone like that, and we plan to destroy him in full. We plan to scrub his life and all memory of him from the pattern of reality, right down to the scars he left on Jessica.”

Matt nodded eagerly. 

“It’s her call on fatality level, as the injured party, but I’m hoping she gives me permission to let the Devil out.” Before Cal could ask another question, Matt heard Skye calling them. “Come on, Skye’s ready.”

<^>

Agents Ferreira and Silva frowned in unison. It was actually creepy, and they knew it. It was why they’d practiced the maneuver, and usually it was done on purpose. This time, though, it was because something had gone terribly wrong.

“Sooo, which direction do we kick this?” Silva asked, looking to her partner. “Because you know what I think it is, and I’m not sure we can take this on our own.”

Ferreira rubbed a hand over his face and surveyed an utterly destroyed tollbooth. The attendant was in the hospital for widespread amnesia, and there was a car driven into a pylon beside the damaged booth, and the steering wheel had crumbled into so much freeze dried dust. “Is is always going to be aliens now? What happened to super soldiers and secret societies? Is it too much to ask to look into something sort of normal for once?”

She laughed and clapped the older man on the shoulder. “Times change, my friend, and we change with them. I personally like the aliens, at least you don’t have to wonder where their humanity went, or need we discuss Os Matadores?”

He shuddered, shaking free the memory of the charnel house they’d helped liberate on orders from their HERO superiors. “No. But I agree we need backup. Is there anyone from the Network in this area?”

Silva opened her phone’s second operating system, a sleek code hidden in the belly of the normal StarkPhone system. She hummed at it as she waited for a reply to her ping. “Informants and other non-combatants, mostly. Two on the edge of the city think they saw something. Someone, rather. They say he was _blue_.”

“What does blue mean again?” he asked. His partner kept up on such information, in ways he hadn’t ever adapted to. The world was getting too big for men like Agent Ferreira.

“For allies, there’s only one, but he’s a better driver and confirmed off-world. For enemies… it means Kree.” He glanced at her as she stopped. “There was a mission a week ago. It’s not on the officially unofficial record yet, but my cousin is a Network informant in Barbados, and they got the word early because it caused earthquakes. An American team flooded an ancient Kree temple. Hydra was involved.”

“So he wants to know who flooded their temple?”

“And probably revenge. The Kree are… warlike.”

“I’ll call SWORD .”

<^>

General Hale was torn. On one hand, Daniel Whitehall was a sexist, backwards, narrow-minded bastard and she was glad he was dead. On the other hand, the destruction of the City and the loss of the Diviner represented major setbacks to a plan she’d given up most of her life for. On a third hand, the fact that she was finally getting to do what she’d always wanted could be directly attributed to one of the most vocal and violent opponents of Hydra, so maybe she didn’t give a damn.

“Are you even listening to me? They are abominations,” the Kree warrior repeated. She looked at him with disdain. He’d been apprehended by a SHIELD team outside Chaves, Portugal trying to steal an empty box of Diviners. “Weapons, capable of terrible destruction.”

“And?” she asked. With a huff, she unfolded her arms and leaned on the table. “Earth is not, as of yet, on an official wartime footing with the Kree Empire. What weapons, human or otherwise, exist on our planet is… what’s the diplomatic term again? Ah, yes. None of your damn business.”

“I must destroy the terrigen crystals, and anyone changed by them,” he insisted, and Hale noted the singular. “I must, if there will ever be peace, I must.”

“Your people don’t know you’re here,” she said softly, and Vin-tak slumped. “What, you’re a rebel? A saboteur? A fanatic or heretic?”

“I’m a _pacifist_ ,” Vin-tak snapped. “I oppose the ideals and tools of war. There have been others before me, scientists, artists, free thinkers who could not be brought to heel. They don’t usually survive discovery by my people.”

“You’re a hippy!” Hale exclaimed, forgetting herself in a moment of understanding. The joy of finding something she knew in a mind that came from another planet more consistently broke her composure than anything else. “Pardon, I didn’t mean to offend. I’m just glad we’re getting somewhere. But if you’re a pacifist, why do you want to kill these people you think have been changed? Murder and pacifism are somewhat mutually exclusive.”

He looked at her and mumbled something. She raised a brow.

“Your species is… the Galactic Standard word is nuk’kenf’tcz. It won’t translate, because it’s an endemic problem on this planet. It means confusing, but in a specific way. The data refuses to add to the result. You shouldn’t have survived as long as you did. Nothing about your species in any way indicates viability past the development of a combustion engine. You’re emotional, unruly, and divided. Frankly, your genetics are a disaster after the many eons of research and, ah… recreation, this planet was used for. If by some narrow margin you didn’t kill yourselves, you’ve faced two invading armies that would have given the Kree pause in the past five years alone. You should be dead or enslaved by now, and yet every time you _rise_. You become kind in the face of cold logic, or logical in the face of pain. You’ve banded together with hated enemies every time you’re invaded, and turned them back... and that’s not to mention Vers.”

“Who?”

“History,” he dismissed, and she let him. “My point is… you’re new. Humans, you aren’t like everyone else, you aren’t like _anyone_ else. I may have been trained to be a warrior, but I always wanted to be a scientist. To learn about new things. You’re what I fight for, what I risk my life for. If the other Kree knew the experiments here had been a success, they would tear your people apart to start them again, and the baffling beauty of humanity would be crushed under Kree heels. I cannot let that happen.”

Hale let out a breath. “I can understand wanting to be more than was desired of you. I can understand curiosity. What I need you to understand is… I’ve made a choice. Humanity has made a choice, I mean. To be _better_ , to fight for that more we want to be. We screw it up, a lot, individually and in groups, but as a species we’ve chosen Good over Evil even when we disagree what those are.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying….” Hale rubbed her face, suddenly weary. “If you want to apply as a refugee, we could use another off-worlder at SWORD, and I’ll vouch for you. You can be a scientist, and live among humans who confuse you. The price, however, is that you have to adapt. You don’t get to sit judgement on people for an accident of genetics, or for your people’s ancient sins. You certainly don’t get to insult people or call them weapons or things. The price is, if you want to live here, you _also_ have to choose Good. If you can’t or won’t… get the hell off our planet and do not come back.”

<^>

There was a knock at the door that snapped Skye out of the book she was reading. Jemma and Cal had her on a strict regimen of healthy food and rest punctuated with gentle exercise and meditation, which had precluded going to work. Which was why she was sitting in her living room wearing yoga pants and reading a mystery novel she’d figured out the solution to in the first chapter, slightly confused why anyone was knocking.

“Skye, it’s me, I know you’re home, please let me in.”

Skye fumbled herself up out of the chair and bolted for the door, taking a second to calm herself before opening it to let Jessica in. “Hey, yeah, come in, what do you need?”

“I can’t just come for a friendly chat?”

“Jessica, I promised you I would do everything in my power to help you when you need it. If what you need is a friendly chat, I can do that. I strongly suspect, however, that you have something less touchy-feely in mind.” Skye punctuated her words with a dose of Eyebrow, and she wasn’t sure which got through. Jessica didn’t seem Eyebrow fluent, but she was hard to read and stubborn about it.

The PI flopped, back down, on the plush sofa and hauled the beachy blue throw blanket off the back to cover her face. “It’s hard.”

“That’s fair. Want me to start?” Jessica peeked up at her and Skye repressed a snort of laughter. She looked like Thomas did. “It’s easier to share if someone else is doing it. You know how I’m descended from people who were genetically modified by aliens?”

“Yeah…. Still don’t believe that, but I’m willing to believe you believe it.”

“We figured out what my gift is.” Skye grabbed a rock from a basket her Dad had given her on his last visit to check her over. She held it up at eye level and focused on it. She could feel the bouncing, the shaking, the vibrations trapped in the facets of crystalline structure.

“Your gift is staring at balls of concrete?”

The focus snapped, and the geode crumbled in a flood of purple sand. “Shiitake mushrooms!” Skye yelped, cradling her hand. “Jess, grab the first aid kit in the kitchen, I didn’t hit you did I?”

Jessica shook her head and rushed through grabbing and opening the red, hard sided case and slipping on gloves. “I didn’t mean to,” she whispered.

“No, it’s fine,” Skye said around clenched teeth as Jessica extracted a long sliver of gemstone from her palm and bound the wound in gauze. “My control is crap right now, I need practice. That’s why the basket of geodes. I’ve obliterated two, got one turned into very pretty gravel, and my best so far is in three chunks. This is number five, and so far, this moment excepted, it is so much safer than the other things we tried. I broke like three glasses and cracked a mirror when I overshot the ball I was trying to move. Also, soda cans… not a good idea in this house anymore.”

“So, you’re clearly dealing with some crap,” Jessica said, and Skye knew that tone.

“Hey, I shared mine, I should at least get to hear what yours is.” She watched the fight drain out of Jessica.

“There’s a guy. Do not start,” she warned, and Skye schooled her face as still and flat as May. “He and I were… are, kinda… having fun. He hired me to help him track down this kid who went missing. The kid’s sister said she has information on his wife’s killer.”

“I’m confused, is the problem you can’t find the kid, that the sister is lying about the intel, or that you’re upset he wants revenge?”

“The problem is _I_ killed his wife.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Os Matadores: Portuguese for Matadors, or bull fighters. It's a subtler term for the Rings.
> 
> Notes:  
> Ferreira and Silva are OC agents of both SHIELD and HERO, but they've never met anyone from the main plotlines. They just happened to be local to the landing site of Vin-tak the Kree. The Bus team doesn't get called, because Sif is elsewhere and not fighting Vin-tak, who was only discovered because he crashed his stolen car and damaged his disguise harness.
> 
> The Network is the main body of HERO, formed of informants, support staff, reserve combat operatives, and other people who aren't actively Agents.
> 
> SWORD is the Sentient Worlds Observation and Response Division, essentially Space-SHIELD. It is currently run by General Hale, a former undercover Hydra operative, who was given the job on the recommendation of Darcy Lewis, who did NOT know Hale had been Hydra at the time.
> 
> Vin-tak's hippy-rebel identity is a headcanon, but it's all that makes sense given he does in canon say he has to destroy the evidence of Inhumans or the Kree will resume the experiments. There are some Captain Marvel spoilers in here, I couldn't really avoid them, but they did inform Vin-tak's character.
> 
> Yet again we see my take on Humans are Space Orcs From Space Australia. Vin-tak's just a weirdo who thinks the Space Orcs are cool.
> 
> Hale is, in this scene, making a choice to leave Hydra. She hasn't done it yet, but this is her moment of knowing she can't keep doing the work of evil people.
> 
> Skye modifies swears at home, because she doesn't want to slip up and swear in front of Thomas. Hence invoking mushrooms when in pain.
> 
> Skye's gift in this is largely the same, she can tap into the atomic vibrations of all matter. The change is in how she's been treated in the aftermath. Cal has some rudimentary knowledge of Inhuman biology and works with Jemma to make a half decent plan for safely teaching Skye control while her body adapts. It makes her less randomly destructive and harder for Gordon to find. Jemma is also treating Vladimir and Anatoly, although their issues aren't a plot-relevant thing right now.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "The fate of the world frequently rests on shoulders that look too tense right now, I’m not going to be the one who gives them a critically timed cramp.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye makes Bad Life Choices and saves the day. These are not mutually exclusive.

Matt was in the middle of a particularly juicy bit of trial prep, a case implying racial bias on the part of the county health inspector’s office, when his phone chirped Skye’s name. For a second he considered letting it go, she had lots of people she could call and there was a new piece of evidence, a policy email that slipped into the subpoenaed records. Then he sighed and did the responsible, older-brother thing.

“Hey, what’s up?” He idly scanned the next paper into the new reader Tony had sent over, and pressed the button for the Braille reader. With his phone face-up on the desk, and the wireless mic Phil had given him clipped to his collar, he didn’t need his hands to take the call, and could still get work done.

“Can you spare some time for Jess, she has… a situation.”

“You’re not on speaker, Skye, you can talk freely.”

“Her boyfriend might go ballistic and try to murder her when he learns she killed his wife under the influence of Killgrave. He’s tracking down information on the case now.”

Matt sighed. “Skye, I am not the resource for this. You cannot keep coming to me with stuff when there are better choices, ones who aren’t running their own law firm.”

“Matt,” she scolded. “We agreed to help Jessica.”

“We did, and I’m not the one who can help with this. Call Bucky, he’s tough and he has the background in mind control and moral injury.”

“Bucky is on a road-trip with Steve. They have a house guest who’s driving everyone crazy, I don’t want to bother them on top of that.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Skye, you know what they’d say if they heard that, right?”

“They’re overloaded, Matt, and you know what I meant. The fate of the world frequently rests on shoulders that look too tense right now, I’m not going to be the one who gives them a critically timed cramp.”

“This is fair, but I’m also really busy right now. I have a case that’s really important. Precedent setting, maybe. We’re a three person firm and the deadline to file is today. I can’t just drop this. We could lose the business.”

“Money isn’t exactly an issue, you know,” Skye said, her voice getting bratty with annoyance. “We’re related to Tony Fucking Stark.”

“I’m not talking to you when you get like this,” Matt said. “I’ll be home tonight for dinner and we can try to have a rational, kind, non-guilt-tripping talk then. I love you, Skye.”

“Whatever,” she grunted and hung up.

<^>

Jessica didn’t want to know what sort of cat fight had happened between the siblings, she just wanted to make sure nothing blew up. That seemed like a real possibility as Skye angrily cleaned her office. She’d managed to put her foot down on the issue of structural changes, but the diminutive agent had been firm on the issue of basic cleanliness. Which meant Jessica was sitting on her desk, keeping her feet off the floor, while Skye restocked a sanitized fridge, when Luke came back.

“I figured we could walk over together, woah!” Luke took a step back as Jessica threw up a hand to warn him. “What’s going on?”

“Rage cleaning,” Skye answered from the kitchen. “He can come in, the floor is dry now. Are we going somewhere?”

“Yeah, at three we’re staking out a PO box to find someone who used Antoine’s phone,” Jessica told her. “Skye, meet Luke. Luke, Skye.”

“We get your sister here and we’re basically a Jedi,” quipped Skye as she came out, removing oversized yellow gloves. Jessica looked at her blankly, but Luke snorted.

“Oh come on, Luke, Skye, Walker? That’s hilarious,” he said. Jessica rolled her eyes, but there was a smile trying to happen. “How do you know Jessica?”

“I shot a cop for trying to murder her sister,” Skye said bluntly. “It wasn’t lethal, don’t worry.”

Jessica decided to move them along by inviting Skye on the stakeout. The more she focused on the case, on helping Antoine, the less she thought about what she’d asked Skye to help her with. The less she worried about what Luke would say, even as Luke was arguing about how to chase the man who came to pick up the package.

“I got this, don’t worry,” Skye reassured, then snapped out a rapid phone call in what sounded Russian. “Tolya sent us all three Ivans, we got this.”

“Is this why you didn’t want to make a deal with Sirkes? You already have connections?”

“They aren’t my connections,” Jessica clarified. “Lunknik is her friend, not mine.”

“He wanted to know if you have allergies, because you’re going on the food delivery roster,” Skye countered. “He likes you. The food roster is for family, Russian immigrants, and people owed debts by the Bratva.”

Jess shook her head, and pointed at the guy who had gotten pissy at the counter hopping into a cab. “Remember the plate number.”

“Actually, that was a Veles taxi,” Skye said, opening another cab’s door for them. “Ivan, we’d like to go where the angry man who was just picked up went.”

The driver was a large, scarred, dangerous looking man missing a chunk of nose. He also had the most incongruous smile on his face.

“Da, da. How many traffic law you like me to break? Also, please tell Miss Simmons her suggestion for borscht was very good. Lime juice! Who would think of lime juice?”

“Nothing that violates safety please. We’re not in a huge rush. I’m glad the borscht was good. Jemma will be happy to hear it. She told me to thank you for the tip about sour cream, Fitz is building her a separate mini-fridge.”

It was an awkward cab ride beside Luke in the back while Skye sat up front chatting with an obvious criminal about cooking. Fortunately, it was also a short cab ride, which left them beside the perfect abandoned warehouse to hold a kidnapped person in. As it turned out, it was also perfect to hold weed, lots of it, and a pair of very angry looking dogs.

“I got this,” Luke said, stepping up. “Sharp teeth are kind of my specialty.”

That left Jessica and Skye to sweep the building. Jessica had to admit she sort of wished she could have Skye’s easy calm, moving swift and deadly, checking each room with calls of “clear”. Especially when they found Antoine in the office of a budding weed distributor.

“Seriously?” Jessica asked him. Skye shook her head and frowned, after which Antoine was as docile as a puppy, letting Skye bundle him into the back of a second taxi that had arrived in the meantime.

“Where’s the other guy? Why are there two new taxis?” Luke asked, emerging from the building.

“Ivan No-Nose had to go to medical,” said the driver of Antoine’s ride, a man shaped like a surgical scar, long and thin and disturbing. “Heavy Ivan is here to take Mr. Sirkes to a meeting. Vladimir wants to look at him when he says not to threaten friends of Bratva. Our apologies, Miss Jones, your position will be made… more clear.”

“Sirkes was here?” Luke seemed disturbed.

“This is why you bring the Ivans,” Skye said smugly. “Take him home, Ivan. And put someone to watch the home for Sirkes’ men, please. We’ll call for pickup when we’re done.”

“What do you mean when we’re done? I have to go with him to Serena.”

“Because she promised you an outlet for all that pent up rage?” Skye said pointedly. Jess shook her head at her friend, and then paused to examine that title. She hadn’t had a friend in a long time. It was new. While she was distracted, the conversation had continued without her, and evolved into raised voices.

“You don’t get to tell me about vengeance,” Luke growled. “You don’t get to pretend your hands are cleaner than mine.”

“It’s not about clean hands, it’s about stopping an _addiction_ before it begins,” Skye returned. Her voice was low, but raw, hurting. “It’s about keeping you from laying awake every night unable to sleep until you’ve pounded some poor idiot into a pulp. It’s about letting one fewer vigilante walk the streets.”

“Why do you care about vigilantes?”

“Because then I have to protect you!” Skye yelled. “You become a vigilante hero, and I have to care about your well being. It’s my job to keep this city’s heroes safe, and I can barely keep myself safe. I certainly can’t keep _you_ safe. You may be tough but you have zero defenses against the worst pain.”

“Why is that?” Luke took a threatening step forward and Jess slipped between them.

“What would you do if I said I killed Reva?” she asked.

“That’s crazy,” Luke growled.

“Kilgrave wanted something, something she’d buried. He used me to dig it up, and then to cover his tracks, he used me to kill her.”

Luke grabbed her arm and leaned in close. “You touched me with the same hands that killed her? You let me be _inside you_ , knowing you killed my _wife_?”

“Luke, you have every right to this and I am not trying to get out of the conversation, but why is the building doing that?” Jessica asked. Luke turned and gaped at the shimmering ripple that sent waves up the side of what had been an ordinary brick building. Skye turned, her eyes flying wide, and Luke grabbed the three of them in a tuck and roll as sand and shards of glass flooded over them.

<^>

Skye had been fighting down the buzzing in her bones since the dogs had cornered them and Luke told the two of them to take off. It had grown in pitch and intensity as they bundled off Antoine and she tried to defuse the bomb that was Luke Cage’s irrational self-loathing. It had come to a painful, snapping peak as Jessica revealed the way in which Cage had made himself vulnerable. It hurt, to even consider that the many enemies who’d made the argument that love was weakness might, in some small way, occasionally be _right_. It hurt to watch the naked fear in Jessica’s eyes, the pain in Luke’s. It hurt to know she would definitely be adding Luke Cage to one of her internal lists, either people she protected or people she had failed.

It hurt to think she’d failed.

It hurt.

Then, there was only peace, a gentle wave like the ocean lapping at the beach, something warm and salty and soothing, broken by a dusky, green smell like old jungle.

“Skye? Skye, you okay?”

“Mm, few more minutes, Zayka, Okaasan needs sleep,” Skye mumbled, trying to burrow back into bed. Something stung at her cheek like a bee and she slapped it, only to be grabbed by an immovable hand.

“Skye, no!” Skye blinked at Jessica and remembered what had happened. “Hold still, we can fix this. I… I hacked your phone, and I called Night Nurse. She’s on her way. Luke is out by the road waiting to flag her.”

“You hacked my phone?” Skye tried to sit up, but Jessica’s other hand went to her shoulder, pinning her gently. “How did you hack my phone?”

“You’ve unlocked it in front of me before, I remember your passcode.” Jessica pulled her hands away with a guilty look. Skye sighed with relief.

“That’s not hacking, I’ll teach you hacking later.” Skye winced as the buzzing started to increase again. “Why does this hurt so much?”

“You were almost buried under a building,” Jessica said, and Skye rolled just enough to see the pile of sand, and the tracks leading out of a cratered dune. “Luke covered us, so there weren’t many cuts from the glass, and I jumped us out, but you took a pretty bad beating. You are literally covered in bruises.”

“I tore down a building?” Skye gaped, an awful hollow feeling in her gut. “Oh god, what if I’d been at home? What if I’d been with _Thomas_? I… I can’t be here.”

“Skye, do not get up, you’re injured!”

“I’m an Agent, I protect people from threats,” Skye insisted, staggering to her feet, poking a finger at Jessica. “I keep the line between powered and non powered. I keep the city safe by keeping people of mass destruction uninclined to destroy.”

“Yeah, and you’re a great agent. Now please calm down, deep breaths, like you taught me.”

Skye looked at her hand, where the pressure was building under the livid red marks spiraling up her fingers. She clenched her fists and pressed her knuckles to her gut. “I have to get out of here, I have to go where I can’t hurt anyone. I can’t control this, and I’m not just breaking glasses, I’m leveling buildings. That’s a rapid escalation, what’s next? Earthquakes?”

“Skye, you are not a bad person, you would never hurt your family,” Jessica looked at the edge of tears and Skye wanted to vomit at the pain she saw. She couldn’t say it, but she had already hurt family, by hurting Jessica.

“I’m sorry,” Skye whispered and ran at the sand, shoving a small circle of safety around her, closing off the path to follow with her powers. The sand was a buffer, but she could feel the rise of the power again. She needed to get out of the city, away from infrastructure, somewhere with no fault lines or risk of avalanches. She needed to be somewhere safe. A blue light crackled and burst, depositing a man with no eyes in front of her.

“Hi, I’m Gordon. I’m sorry for meeting under these circumstances, but you seem to be in some distress. Would you like to go home?”

“Not home, somewhere safe,” Skye gasped, pushing her hands harder into her gut. He wrapped gentle arms around her and everything went blue, the color of glitched computers and dubious panaceas, the color of summer skies and Thomas’ favorite stuffed bunny.

Then, she didn’t hurt anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Da: Russian for Yes.  
> Zayka: Russian for Bunny, a nickname for Thomas  
> Okaasan: Japanese for Mom.
> 
> Notes:  
> This is set right before the Ultron arc in Bodies in Space. The annoying house guest is Hank Pym, who pushes people's buttons like it's a hobby.
> 
> Matt doesn't want to live off Tony's kindness, and owning his own firm is important to his self-identity as a lawyer who only takes just cases. Skye knows this and normally is less bratty, but she's got her own issues happening and a heaping dose of cabin fever from being on bed rest.
> 
> The three Ivans are Ivan No-Nose, Skinny Ivan, and Heavy Ivan. They work for Anatoly (aka Tolya, aka Lunknik) and Vladimir Ranskahov, heads of the New York Bratva, or Russian Mob. Sirkes is a loan shark who isn't explicitly connected to any criminal organization.
> 
> As a part of the new, kinder, gentler Russian Mob, Anatoly has been organizing a food roster to deliver extra groceries to specific groups he wants thinking kindly of the Bratva. Giving people free food is a good PR move, not treating it as a debt to be paid off is even better.
> 
> Veles Taxi is a company owned by the Ranskahovs.
> 
> Vladimir is experimenting with his new empathy sight power, and will be using Sirkes to test it on. It's not ethical, but Vladimir isn't an ethics-first kind of dude, and Sirkes touched one of Vladimir's people.
> 
> Skye's powers rip her up if she isn't using them correctly. Her attempt to suppress the use of them while working in a stressful situation caused her to vibrate her own cells until bruises formed and she destroyed a building rather than destroy herself. Instinct aimed away from people, but it still freaked her out that she had that power.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "I’m going to need to call home, even though I know Gordon said it isn’t allowed. Because I found a place, and if I don’t tell them I’m safe, none of you are going to be safe.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye goes to Afterlife, and this causes a big disruption.

“What do you mean you lost Skye?” Matt asked, the Devil in his soul biting at the leash that kept it contained. He wanted to let loose, to run after the evils in the world, to hit them until things crunched, to bite until he tasted blood. He wanted to hurt the world that took his sister.

“It’s not her fault,” said Luke, the man Jessica had brought with her. They’d gotten a ride from Claire, who was on her way back to the hospital, but clearly had come right to Nelson and Murdock, because they were covered in dust. “Skye had some freaky power that brought down a building.”

“So you’re saying it’s my sister’s fault?”

“What? No! Look, man, I’m saying she turned a whole warehouse full of pot into sand and broken glass, on _accident_.”

“Then she passed the fuck out,” Jessica continued. Matt could hear her fingers creaking on Luke’s arm, so he assumed there was a durability power happening. “So I took a look to be sure she was okay. She was _covered_ in bruises, Matt, and when she woke up and found out what she did, she aimed her fists at her own gut.”

“I can’t blame the girl for freaking out about her power,” Luke said, clearly not getting what Jessica was telling them. “I did too. Run, that is.”

“Yeah, that’s great for you,” Matt snapped, “but your power clearly isn’t ripping you to shreds and giving you suicidal urges, so can we please focus on finding my sister?”

“Wait, suicidal… did I miss something?”

“Skye focuses the power through her hands,” Jessica explained. “I saw her turn a geode to sand, like the building. Putting her fists in her gut? That’s like aiming a gun at _herself_ to keep from pointing it at _someone else_. We need to save her, Luke, this is my fault. She was safe, and then I went and fucked it all up as usual.”

“Stop that,” Matt snapped. “I’m not happy Skye is missing, but you don’t get to talk that way about yourself. Look, I’m going to call her boss, see if I can get Coulson’s resources on this. You… you’re an investigator, Jess. _Investigate_. Surely someone saw her leaving the sand pile.”

“What about me?” Luke asked.

“From the way Jess is clinging, I assume your power is durability based?”

“Unbreakable skin.”

“You get to tell Cal about this, and ask if there’s an Inhumans angle. Fair warning, he will _definitely_ try to cut you. He’s… not stable.”

“Great.” Luke’s chest rumbled like a subway train and Matt caught half-vocalized words.

“Yeah, you are being punished,” he answered, smiling as he heard Luke’s spine pop from suddenly straightening. “You’re the reason Jess was scared enough to call Skye in. You posed a viable threat to a woman you were dating, enough that she recruited my convalescing sister to be on hand with a topical tranquilizer when she told you about her trauma. You’re a threat to my family, but Jessica likes you, so I’m going to give you a chance. _A_ chance, singular. One chance to prove what kind of man you are. If you can hold your anger in safely around someone broken, or if you’re just a piece of shit who scares women and hurts the mentally ill.”

“Lot of pressure to put on one talk.”

“I’ve had a bad week, everything is on a deadline, now let’s go.”

<^>

The new girl was amazing. Like nothing Lincoln had seen before. Her power _slid_ along his as he worked with her nervous system to reintegrate her senses around the new organelles that controlled it. Her gift felt warm, soft, and comforting, familiar to some deeply hidden part of him. It almost scared him how much he wanted to forget his purpose there and just sink into her energy’s embrace.

“You have to wake her sometime,” Gordon said from behind him and Lincoln sighed. The older man put a hand unerringly on Lincoln’s shoulder. It was still strange after all these years that Gordon, eyeless as he was, saw so much more than the rest of them. “She’s stronger than you think.”

“I know. Will you be ready to help catch her? She’ll be waking up into a whole new world, one for which she was never properly prepared. I can transition her body, but her mind…”

Gordon nodded and Lincoln eased back the electrical block that had kept her brain from full consciousness. He smiled down at his patient as she blinked sleepily. “Hi, I’m Lincoln, your transitioner. I’m here to help you find peace with your gift.”

“Not a gift, a curse,” she muttered unhappily. “Why can’t I move?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to yet, I’m still finishing up on your myosatellite cells. It’s… uh, you ever made popcorn in the microwave? Take it out too soon, nothing but kernels, leave it in too long, charcoal.” She raised an elegant eyebrow and Lincoln felt like an idiot. “You know what, bad metaphor, nevermind. Talk to Gordon, I’ll just finish this up.”

He busied himself with his work, trying to ignore her hushed conversation with Gordon. He caught a few things, she mentioned a brother who was also blind and yet could see, and a son. A large list like that of people she needed to contact, actually. He wondered how that many Inhumans had been left out of the culture so far. Sure, some people slipped through cracks, families got broken up, and Gordon wasn’t going to be able to find all of them. But Lincoln had thought it was a few individuals, people like him from broken homes, people like Elder Bensaid who had been torn from their homes by war. Cast offs and tragedies. What Skye was talking about sounded like a huge, loving, communicative… _family_. One that knew nothing of the Inhumans or their history. How had they missed an entire clan?

“Of course, Lincoln is better suited to explain the physical aspects,” Gordon said, snapping Lincoln out of his contemplation. “His training is medical, and his position here is to ensure a safe and painless transition.”

“Hopefully painless,” Lincoln said with a small smile. “I just need to get these needles out of you and then you can get dressed. Some people prefer to close their eyes for this part.”

“Why are they shooting out sparks?” she asked, ignoring the invitation.

“Your system has…” he paused. “What do you know about biology? There’s some technical stuff here and I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

She shook her head slightly. “I’m tech, not wetware.”

He nodded back and formulated an explanation. “You were upgraded. Severely, and with no preparation. It… it’s sticking a StarkTech hard drive in a computer from the fifties, the big room size ones?”

She smothered a laugh behind her teeth and Lincoln admitted he was bad at analogies. “So, I’m cranking out an output I can’t contain?” she asked.

“Well, you can contain it, but while I was getting everything else hooked up around it so you don’t fry on your own gift, I needed your energy to go somewhere else. Like turning off the water line before fixing the plumbing.”

“How important is this process to survival as an Inhuman?” she asked pointedly as he removed the last needle. “If, for instance, someone didn’t get this treatment, what could they expect?”

“It’s different for everyone,” Lincoln said, frowning. Had many of her family gone through Terrigenesis? “Usually the gifts start out hard to control, sometimes even dangerous, and this makes them easier to handle, soothes them. In theory we can survive without Transitioning, as long as our powers don’t do something like burn down our home with us in it. The ancient Inhumans did survive before finding the tools we use now, after all.”

“Inhumans?”

“It’s what we call ourselves. We’re not humans. We’re also not mutants, we were made this way on purpose. We’re all a part of something larger.” He grinned at her. “You’ve felt that, haven’t you? The seeking? The need to find the place you fit into the design?”

Skye shifted, looking uncomfortable. “About that… I’m going to need to call home, even though I know Gordon said it isn’t allowed. Because I found a place, and if I don’t tell them _I’m_ safe, none of you are going to be safe.”

<^>

The second day of searching, over fifty hours with no lead. Jessica’s chest ached and her gut rebelled at the roil of old hunger and new sobriety. She wanted to cut the pain with a dose of her preferred medication, something brown from a whiskey bottle that was unlikely to be real whiskey, but her needs didn’t allow for that. Skye needed her sharp, focused, clear headed. So she’d be all those things and more.

A buzzing caught her attention and she stepped back from the roof edge she’d chosen as a vantage point, reaching into her bag for her phone.

“Speak,” she commanded without looking at the number.

“You were late, Jessica,” said a voice she had hoped never to hear again. “I told you not to let it happen again. Then… you missed it entirely. One might almost think you don’t care about young Malcolm’s situation.”

Shit.

She’d forgotten, torn up by Skye’s loss as she’d been.

“I’m kinda having a personal crisis,” she said, fighting the snarl down. “Regretfully, you are not the worst thing that’s happened to me this week, which would be why I haven’t had time to rain unholy fuckery down upon you. If you go after Malcolm, that could change, but you need to know things would be different if you do that. No more cat and mouse, no more mind games, no more trying to toe a line we both know you threw me over long ago. No, I’ll just shoot you in the face from outside your range and sleep like a baby. I’m not any fun when I’m angry, Kilgrave, so… don’t make me angry.”

“My, I hadn’t suspected how much fire you’d have, but I suppose that’s a failing on my part. You always were…” He inhaled sensually and Jessica fought the urge to throw her phone off the roof. “ _Passionate_. Like myself, which I think is what makes you so attractive. Never fear, I’ll leave you your pet addict, you clearly have enough troubles at the moment. But really, Jessica? Zucchini bread? You can’t be enjoying that. So I… disposed of it for you.”

Jessica felt her heart hit the roof of her mouth as he hung up. Her eyes watered unpleasantly as she called a contact she’d hoped not to use.

“Hi Lunknik, it’s Jessica Jones. I need a favor.”

<^>

Anatoly leaned casually against the doorframe of Jessica Jones’ kitchen, watching her sister and her sister’s lover. They’d arrived as he was finishing his cleaning, and refused to leave. He didn’t feel like letting the meddlesome pair remain unattended, so he stood with them to wait. It could be hours, but Anatoly was good at waiting. Jessica’s sister was not.

“Where is she?” she asked uselessly. “We’re sitting on the lead of a lifetime here, we could take Kilgrave down, and she’s… where? Chasing some cheating bastard?”

“Kidnapping case, but good guess,” Jessica said, unlocking the door. “Lunknik. It’s… done?”

“Da. There is fund, for bystanders, survivors. Widows and Orphans Fund. If you have name, I can write check.” Anatoly gave her a soft, sad smile. He knew what that guilt felt like. He’d had to let it go dormant in himself, in the bad old days. One gift Ms. Morozova had given him was the permission to rouse his soul again. To care what happened to civilians. “Is not much compared to a life, but rent and food are all we can give.”

“His sister lives upstairs… God this is fucked up.” Jessica slumped into her chair. “Yeah, cut the check. She’ll probably turn it down, but it’s what he would have wanted.”

“What is going on here?” The sister’s lover looked sharply between the crime lord and the detective, clearly trying to build himself a picture that made sense. He could not, and Anatoly found that somewhat funny.

“None of your business,” Jessica said firmly but less rudely than she could have. “What were you here for?”

“We think we can help you take down Kilgrave,” the man said simply. Jessica leaned in, the wolf’s grin that made Anatoly look at her and think ‘family’ spreading.

“I’m listening.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Organelles: subsystems in a cell, like mitochondria or nuclei.  
> Myosatellite cells: a type of stem cell in human muscle.  
> Widows and Orphans Fund: a fund of money to help the family of people killed in the line of duty. In this case, also covering accidental Bratva victims and other survivors of criminal activity.
> 
> Notes:  
> Matt is in no way a happy camper and it shows. His behavior is understandable, but not right. He knows he can't physically hurt Jessica and Luke to let off steam because they haven't actually done anything wrong, but he does lay into their emotions pretty hard.
> 
> Skye canonically has a suicidal willingness to lay herself out for the safety of others. It usually isn't any worse than the rest of the heroic side of the family, but right now she's missing and it's a worrying trait if there's nobody acting as backup.
> 
> Jessica knows she isn't going to hurt Luke on accident, and that's a very reassuring fact for her, so she's squeezing on his arm hard enough to pop her own knuckles, which Matt can hear. To non-enhanced people it doesn't look like clinging, it looks like using him for support after an injury, which is also sort of is.
> 
> My headcanon for Skye's power is that she developed an extra set of "muscles" out of organelles in her myosatellite cells that control the seismic vibrations around her. Since they appeared suddenly, her nerves weren't connected to them yet and she ran over her own foot some in trying to figure it out by trial and error. Lincoln's job is to get the two systems, nervous and seismic, to communicate without leaving room for Skye to accidentally vibrate herself to bits.
> 
> I know that I'm not sticking super close to canon, but I prefer the idea that most of the Afterlife Inhuman community are carefully recorded and their family trees kept track of. Even the ones who aren't contacted by the Elders are at least monitored.
> 
> Skye laughs at his description because that basically was what Arnim Zola had going on in the Hydra base, a very advanced drive in an antique system.
> 
> Detox can be a horrid experience and Jessica hasn't been sober in about a year. At this point her system is under more strain when she goes cold turkey (stops drinking all together) than it is when she drinks.
> 
> Jessica's neighbor Ruben has a crush on her and brings her zucchini bread. His attentions are unwanted, but don't cross the boundaries she sets. Kilgrave breaks into her apartment, directly challenging her boundaries, and kills Ruben when he comes to see what's happening at Jessica's place while she's out.
> 
> As a part of revamping the Bratva, the Ranskahov brothers instituted protections for non-criminals hurt by criminal activity. One element is the Widows and Orphans Fund to help support people who lost family to violence caused by or in proximity to the Bratva. The goal there is to mitigate damage done overall through loss of an income, and prevent retaliation.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “I say things because I need to say them, not because I need others to believe them."


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Afterlife, Skye uncovers hidden depths. In New York, Jessica Jones sets a trap.

Skye was restless. She hadn’t been able to call home. Everyone seemed nice, and she understood the operational security for something like this had to be tighter than a drum, but she knew, deep in the unspoken place that whispered _family, home, togetherness, you are mine and I am yours_ , that she needed to call home. She’d left too suddenly, during a crisis. She could defend that choice, but Matt was going to be worried sick. Bucky, when he found out, would go into Soldier mode. Thomas had already been abandoned by one mother. Phil would blame himself… so would May, but quieter and more self destructively. Foggy…

It hurt. It hurt to think of their pain, and her pain leaked out into the world around her in tremors and quakes.

It was dangerous to let herself be put in that kind of pain.

“I’m telling you, I’m more danger out of contact with my family than I am if I call them! I can keep a secret, I have level 7 clearance for God’s sake! Isolating me is going to cause seismic disturbances they can track. Do you want them thinking I’m a hostage? Because that ends with a rescue mission and the end of your precious secrecy,” she snarled at Lincoln. She liked him, she did, but he was so irritatingly hidebound and stubborn. It didn’t help that her power had the hots for his power and kept rubbing up against the pleasant heat of his electrical field. It was like the entirely unwelcome physical attraction to Ward in ways she didn’t think were fair to the healer.

“Threats don’t change the fact I literally cannot get you to a phone!” He threw up his hands in obvious frustration.

“It’s not a threat if I don’t get to control it!” Skye snapped back. Growling she stalked out of the luxurious little vacation cottage they’d given her and stormed out. “I’m just going for a walk, Lincoln, do _not_ follow me.”

Phrasing it that way, clearly and firmly, ensured that he wouldn’t, and if he did, someone would stop him. For all that the inhabitants of Afterlife seemed torn between envy and outright dislike of her, one thing she had noticed was a widespread disinclination to disrespect boundaries. She supposed that was because there was an emotional element to control over the varied and potentially lethal powers of the… Inhumans. She still hated that name, but she was in no place to tell them to change it.

The gardens were beautiful. She liked the quiet chirp of crickets and birds, the soft scents of the flowers and the wet, _green_ feel of it all. Skye chuckled as she realized she related to beauty the way Matt did, with senses other than sight. She sat on a bench overlooking a traditional Zen sand garden and took the time to miss him until the carefully raked pattern was flat again.

“Didn’t like my garden?” asked an older man, sitting beside her. Skye looked him over with a trained eye. Medium brown skin, wrinkles baked in with large dark spots of irregular shape, a long life, lived under the sun. An aquiline nose that had been broken twice, once from some form of lateral strike, and once as part of a shoddy repair to the first break. He was wearing a Tunisian chechia, but his thobe was a matching red embroidered richly in black, Jordanian or Syrian. He had a scarf wrapped around his throat, but at the edge of his chin she could see the shine of burn scars. The same marked his hands down to his fingers, which seemed curiously untouched.

“I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her eyes respectfully. “I was upset, but that’s no excuse for damaging your things. May I help you fix it?”

“Nonsense, child. Sand is made to move. I remake it every morning anyway, you just saved me the step of raking it flat.” He looked at her and Skye could feel the return of the analytical glance she’d given him. She wondered what he saw. A bi-racial girl, surely. No visible scars or breaks. Her clothes were all borrowed from the supplies left in her cabin, so it’s not like he could read into the pale green tee and the tan colored jeans. He may or may not be able to see her training, her skills.

“I’m Skye.”

“Elder Bensaid. If I may, there’s someone in the second transitioner’s cabin who you may benefit from seeing.”

“Lincoln said they weren’t using that one,” Skye said carefully.

“Lincoln is a good man. Honorable, peaceful, compassionate, respectful of his elders… _loyal_. Once you earn his loyalty, he would do almost anything for you, even things he finds distasteful, without question.”

Skye nodded. Aside from the loyalty, that tracked with what she’d seen. If he’d given his loyalty to someone who told him to lie, he wouldn’t like it, but he might do it. Which meant someone told him to lie to her. Given the general feeling about explicit boundaries, telling her not to go there would have made the most sense, if there were legitimate reasons. Others knowing she’d been given a boundary would increase social pressure, complicate any plan she made to violate it. Lying only served a purpose if there was something more at play.

“No offence, but why are you telling me this?”

“Jiaying was a wise leader for many years. She’s helped many of us, and more than earned the faith of her people. She guides us and gives us purpose.” Bensaid sighed. “Our purpose does not come from Jiaying. Our future does not belong to Jiaying. We were made for a reason, and unlike many here, I distrust the motives of strangers giving out power. I do not forget that the only reason to hand a weapon to a child is in the service of war.”

“I don’t care for the Kree either,” Skye said quietly. “They make battle slaves and gladiator rings. Neither of those things is good.”

Bensaid nodded. “Jiaying thinks she can harness their army. Use the swords they gave us to ensure we win a place above the others. I know that sometimes the only way to win is not to play. Beat the swords to plowshares and then the plowshares to pens with which we can write our own stories.”

“You aren’t wrong, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“I suppose I didn’t. I’m telling you this because I’ve taken on an apprentice. I don’t usually, neither does Jiaying, and that keeps the balance. She’ll be interested in you, though, and I want you to see the work being done, before you make your choices.”

Skye nodded, and Elder Bensaid stood up and stretched his arms above his head with a yawn.

“Good night Skye. Go in peace.”

<^>

Raina got up from her desk, and put on her veil. It was a pretty thing, tightly woven white bamboo cloth stitched in natural silk in the shapes of moonflowers, morning glories, and jasmine. More importantly, it blocked light. Since she was going to turn on the lamp for her guest, it was necessary.

She was able to get the light on and return to the safety of the canopied nest she slept in before Skye knocked on her door.

“Please come in,” she said, loudly and clearly.

“Hi, I don’t mean to intrude, but Elder Bensaid told me I should come see you?” The agent’s voice was uncertain.

“He is usually correct,” Raina sighed. She stuck one hand out of the shadows and pointed to a stack of square pillows. “Pull up a cushion. I’m not a very good hostess, I’m afraid. Terrigenesis has a wicked sense of humor and I _literally_ live in the shadows now.”

Sitting across from Skye, Raina suppressed the surge of anger she felt at the beauty the other woman still had, visible even through the veil with Raina’s newly night-adapted sight. All power came with a price, she reminded herself. Hers stripped away her most useful tool for manipulation. Skye had never traded on looks, or seemed to care at all about them. It was one thing Raina envied about her, the way she could not care, and still be beloved by all. Whatever had been taken in the cavern, it would be hurting Skye just as much as the light burned Raina.

“I need to apologize,” Raina said, lifting a clawed hand to stop Skye from interrupting. “This isn’t for you, please don’t think it is. I mean _I_ need to. Aside from receiving it, _you_ are unnecessary to the process.

“I apologize for meddling in your life. I made choices based on what would reach your attention, not on what would actually help me. That hurt you, and now I recognize that was wrong of me. I apologize for blaming you when my relationships didn’t work as planned. Rather than examine my own behavior to prevent further problems, I attributed more malice to you than is reasonable. I apologize for manipulating you into going through Terrigenesis. It should have been your choice, Skye. It hurts _so much_ , and I didn’t know that. I believed it was purely good, a wonderful gift you were stupid or evil for rejecting… I really believed in the blue angels.”

Suddenly, Raina was being held. Her veil was pressing tight enough to the thorns of her face that small pinpricks of painful light were sneaking past, and she shut her eyes against them. She could feel small drops of warmth on her arms and back.

“Skye, you’re hurting yourself, let go.”

“It’s just scratches, I’ve had worse. You very clearly needed a hug.” Skye sat back, and moved to turn off the lamp. “I’m sorry I tore your veil. Is this better?”

Raina opened her eyes to look at Skye standing in a dark room, chest and arms dotted in red, little flower buds blooming without care. Raina looked at her and understood, for the first time, what the fuss was about. “Oh,” she said, pulling the veil away to better see. “That’s why.”

Skye tilted her head. It wasn’t words, but it was a question.

“When I came here, I was full of rage I didn’t know how to control. I had always been in control of my emotions, but the rage, the _fear_ … it was awful so I focused on the anger. Elder Bensaid asked me what I was angry about. I said I was angry that you got everything, and I got nothing, and I didn’t know why.”

“I’d hardly say I got _everything_ , but yeah, I’ve been generally pretty lucky,” Skye admitted easily. “Cal aside, though, I haven’t taken anything from you. We have to have a long talk about adoption and sociopathy, but I think that’s repairable if you want.”

“I know. It took me a long time, lots of work, but I know you aren’t responsible. You got what you got because you are who you are. I lost what I did because of who I am, what I did. I just… I just didn’t really understand where the differences were until now. Why your makeshift family worked and mine didn’t. You got to have a happy family because you’re the sort of person who hugs sad thorn bushes. _You_ are the flower. I’m the thorns.”

Skye shook her head. “I’m a natural disaster, Raina, and I had to leave my family to keep them safe, only now I’m worried I’ll endanger everyone here. I make earthquakes when I’m worried about them.”

“But you’re _always_ worried about them. That’s your biggest soft spot, your nuclear option for manipulation.” Raina had slowly been experimenting with the new levels her emotions could go to, but she hadn’t expected fear could give the feeling of her gut falling away, or a sharp tingle at the join of her thighs. “Skye… how powerful are you?”

Skye looked at her with wide eyes. “Fully able to pulverize this entire house and everything in it to sand and splinters.”

“That is enough!” snapped a woman from the door. “You are guest in my house and I will not have threats being thrown around here.”

<^>

Lincoln reached the cabin right after Jiaying. Skye and Raina were together, which he’d been ordered to prevent. Skye shouldn’t even know Raina was here. Shouldn’t know anyone was here. Jiaying had given him specific instructions.

“Lady, you don’t know what a threat is if you think that was one,” Skye said darkly. “That was a simple statement of fact. Also, _guests_ are allowed to _leave_. The word you want is prisoner.”

“Skye! You can’t talk like that to her… Jiaying is our _leader_.” Lincoln felt his jaw drop with what seemed like the gravitational force of a bowling ball attempting synchronized para-jumping. His heart thudded wildly at the breach of all he thought he knew as the two women faced off against each other.

“And I would like to be your guide,” Jiaying picked up smoothly, giving him a nod he didn’t have the mental energy to return. Not that she would notice, her focus was back on the two new and volatile elements. “I would like to watch you grow, and show you how beautiful your power can be. It doesn’t have to be dark and terrible, please, just give me a week. If you’re still set on leaving us then, you can go. Just give me a chance?”

“One week,” Skye said, her lips tight. Lincoln could feel the snap of her power under her skin, pulsing along veins beside her nerves. It wanted out, it wanted to be used. He knew she was right, she _needed_ to find an outlet or her gift would destroy Afterlife. “You get one week to make me safe to be around people, and then I go. Don’t waste time convincing me it can be beautiful, I’m acquainted with the beauty of deadly things. Just teach me how to safely hold my son.”

Jiaying flinched. Skye didn’t see it, neither did Raina, the older woman being quite good at concealing emotion. Lincoln saw it, in the flickering tinge of pinks that marked electrical currents to him. A suppressed motion still sent messages along the nerves, and that was as clear to his power as words on a page were to his eyes.

He sympathized with his leader, with the pain she must feel for having missed an entire family. The failure burned at him, and he wasn’t even in charge. Something in the tension of the air shifted, and Skye nodded at him as she brushed past. Raina flicked another scarf over her head in a clear dismissal of them. He looked to Jiaying, as always the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but sad and distant from him. Like a marble statue behind a sign saying “don’t touch” her beauty did not invite, but he took every chance to see it anyway.

“Lincoln,” she said mildly, and he felt his heart drop. She was disappointed in him.

“I’m sorry, Jiaying,” he said immediately. “I failed you, Skye was just so stubborn…”

“We will discuss this later. I have work to do, as do you.” She swept past him with her head held high. He sighed, then yelped as Raina put her hand on his shoulder.

“She isn’t who you think she is,” Raina said in a whisper. “She isn’t who she thinks she is, either. The lie is beginning to fray, and the truth will send us to cages.”

“You have admitted to working for supervillains,” he said, giving her a skeptical look. “Why would I listen to you?”

“It honestly doesn’t matter if you do,” she said with a shrug. It would have been cute if he hadn’t been warned of her past. “I say things because I need to say them, not because I need others to believe them. If you’ll pardon me, it’s almost time for prayers, and I need to bathe.”

<^>

Natasha put her hand on Jessica’s shoulder. “You’re very brave for doing this,” she said, and noted the way the younger woman let the hand rest for a second before shrugging it off.

“He’s my mess, I’m going to clean it up,” Jessica said. They’d tracked Kilgrave back to her family’s home, her childhood home. Natasha knew that had to have been hard, knowing he was violating the past like that. “Just promise me you’ll kill me if he takes me again.”

“I’ll shoot him,” Natasha said. “Shooting you is a last course of action, and killing you is off the table.”

“I’m serious, Natasha, do not let him make me kill again.” Jessica blinked away a split second tear, and Natasha felt her heart tug at her. Walker and the soldier were watching the exchange warily, Simpson keeping his eyes mostly on the road ahead of them.

“I won’t,” she said. “I’m a very good shot, I promise. Just get him to a window, or even better, outside.”

“First I have to be sure he doesn’t have anyone on a deadman switch,” Jessica insisted.

“We’re here for you,” Walker said firmly. Natasha gave her a cool look. The blonde was trying too hard, her eagerness gave her a feral edge, and something in her signaled hunger. Maybe just the ambition of a star, maybe just the need of an addict, but maybe something darker. An envy that could sour sister against sister.

“We’re here,” Simpson announced, interrupting Natasha’s thoughts. “Time to get the bastard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Chechia: a cylindrical brimless cap of Arab origin often having a tassel on the crown.  
> Thobe: an ankle-length, long-sleeved, gownlike garment worn chiefly by men of the Arabian Peninsula.  
> Plowshares: the cutting blade of a plow, this is a reference to a very old saying about making peace.
> 
> Notes:  
> Elder Bensaid is an Original Character that I inserted to help balance the power dynamics of Afterlife, because in canon Jiaying goes unchallenged and Skye should have been upset by that. Elder Bensaid represents the population that wants peaceful civilian coexistance with humans and mutants, the Professor X of the Inhumans, if you will. Jiaying is on the more Magneto-esque side of things, although with a side of personality cult thrown in.
> 
> The Kree were responsible for the early life of Yondu, a known ally, which was spent as a battle slave in a gladiator ring.
> 
> Moonflowers, morning glories, and jasmine are all night-blooming plants. The veil was a gift from Raina's mentor, Elder Bensaid. Getting to have nice things helps Raina's adaptation to her new form, whereas canon saw her being dressed like a medieval monk and that couldn't have felt good on top of losing her old form and the dysphoria of that.
> 
> Part of Raina's transformation was a deepening of her emotional range, which was overwhelming. She herself isn't necessarily a sociopath, but having been raised by one (Cal) she mimicked that flattened range and hadn't experienced or learned to handle the emotions the rest of humanity feels.
> 
> Jiaying needs to control Skye, and the perceptions of the people of Afterlife. She does this with gaslighting, trying to frame Skye as unstable or threatening, so she can then swoop in to "protect" Skye from the consequences. She would prefer it if Skye really had threatened Raina, part of why she had Lincoln lie rather than just tell her not to go there, but she'll take what she can get.
> 
> Raina is not religious, but her mentor is Muslim, and so she's following his example in the use of regular prayer to help focus herself and find peace. It also helps that wudu, bathing for ritual purpose before prayer, is itself a self soothing act.
> 
> The plan in the last section is what took me so long to get this up, since my changes would have rendered the canonical version of events pointless. The general idea is the same as the snatch and grab from earlier, shoot him with the modified ICER and get him to a containment unit. The change here is that Jessica is going to act as bait, and be sure he doesn't have any extraneous fail safes, and that means putting herself in the very dangerous position of talking to Kilgrave. They need him alive to help exonerate his victims, especially Hope Schlottman, or they'd just shoot him at a distance.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "I may have broken a rule. And his jaw.”


	16. Boiling points and revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye learns about the past, and Jessica fights to overcome it.

Once she wasn’t being treated like a prisoner, Skye actually liked Jiaying. She liked the gentle way the older woman guided her to use her power not as a battering ram, but as a radio. Not something to inflict on the world or herself, but as a tool to access currents and frequencies she couldn’t ordinarily have tapped into. As a raft to carry her along through a world constantly in motion, a parachute to soften falls that should by all rights be fatal.

Something that could save people.

“Good, you aren’t fighting it anymore,” Jiaying said, watching Skye smooth and redistribute sand in a shallow dish. Skye still hadn’t told her about Elder Bensaid’s garden, and why she’d gone to see Raina. It seemed like ammunition the politically astute woman didn’t need, and Skye had spent too long with spies to give everything up so easily.

“Yeah, I just had to figure out how to sort out the frequencies I’m using, versus the ones I’m not.” Skye drew a familiar shape of curved lines and angles in the sand with her finger, before brushing it out again with her power. “I helped my brother learn how to filter through his power, I just hadn’t thought of it that way for me too.”

“Your brother,” Jiaying said flatly.

“We grew up together. Nowhere else wanted me, I just kept getting sent back by every foster home out there, and well… Matt wasn’t leaving St. Agnes. So we stuck together, we stood up for each other. Drove each other nuts with pranks.” Skye smiled. “He was home when there wasn’t anywhere I could call home. He went to college and I... lost it, packed up and went looking for my _real_ family, like he hadn’t been that already. Like people I last saw when I was born were somehow more important. I don’t even know _when_ that was, but it turned into this excuse because I was so scared that if I didn’t leave first, he would leave me. I can’t do that again.”

“You fear abandonment,” Jiaying said with understanding. “But we're not going to turn on you or abandon you. This is a safe place.”

“I’d like to think that, but you haven’t been honest with me.” Skye set the bowl of sand aside and unfolded herself so she could stand to face Jiaying on an even level. “There are layers to this place I don’t understand, and you had Lincoln hide Raina from me, and I can’t leave. I don’t know why I’m so important to your plans and-”

“July second,” Jiaying said suddenly. Skye pulled up short. “You were born on July second. It was, um, a hot night, and, for some reason, I decided to clean the house before I woke your father. Cal went to the neighbor’s house to borrow their car, but he didn’t speak Chinese. So, uh, it was a mess.”

“He said you died.” Not the most elegant way to acknowledge her long lost mother, but the one that came to her. “I mean, Whitehall said you didn’t age, but I thought he killed you.”

“By all rights I should have died. Your father found me, his surgical skill and my gift allowed me to survive.” Jiaying sighed. “I swear, we looked for you. After your father pieced me back together, we scoured the Earth, and we were ruthless in hunting for you. One morning, I woke up, and I could barely recognize myself. Your father was buried in the new, horrible man he had become. He couldn't admit that our baby was gone. I thought I had to accept it. I'm so sorry. I thought if I couldn't find you, maybe I could help protect others, so I came here.”

Skye reeled. This revelation was too much, overturned too many things she thought she’d known. “Okay. Okay, I can understand… most of that, when I look at the parts, but….”

“It’s okay, it’s a lot,” Jiaying said sadly. “You have time, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“But I have to,” Skye reminded her. “Thomas, my son, your grandson needs me.”

“I can’t make exceptions just for you, no matter how much I want to, because I'm responsible for everyone here.”

“Favoritism undermines trust,” Skye said, thinking about Mack and the others who felt betrayed by the secret war HERO had waged under their noses. Jiaying nodded.

“People have died when the process for selection and training has been ignored,” she said sadly.

“I already skipped that process,” Skye said with new understanding. “Nobody knows if they can trust me, because nobody vetted me before hand, and I clearly have loyalties outside this place and these people.”

“I protected you from the swift response that usually brings, but everyone remembers what happened the last time someone decided to ignore the process. A woman, Eva, she didn't trust my judgment so she stole a batch of terrigen crystals. She fled and got caught up with some criminals in Bahrain.” Jiaying’s eyes went misty with memory and Skye felt a nasty echo in her heart. “But she didn't steal the crystals for herself. She stole them for her daughter, Katya. I saw a darkness in the girl, and I didn't think she should go through the mist, but Eva wanted Katya to receive her birthright. She trusted her judgment over mine.”

“I know this story,” Skye said, "but from another angle. SHIELD found them, sent in the welcome wagon and it went south. Agent May rescued thirteen agents that day, but they lost the girl.”

“Katya was too young, and she went insane under the pressure of her gift. With one touch, she leeched off emotions like a parasite until she could control people, make them do whatever she wanted. There are no bad gifts, but... she had no control, and no safe way to learn it, given what her powers could do. She needed to be stopped, but not by SHIELD. It should have been me. She was my responsibility.”

It made too much sense, May’s tense emotional control, her soft spot for children, the way she defended Bucky for what had happened under Hydra’s control. The way she’d let Skye take point on Kilgrave.

Oh no.

Kilgrave.

“Jiaying, I have to get a message out,” Skye said. “We got distracted, caught up on me and my family nonsense, and I left… Oh no.”

<^>

Jessica pressed down the recoil of fear at the smarmy smile of her rapist. She let herself roll her eyes and bluff, knowing he knew full well her skin was trying to crawl off her body. Sometimes, the only comforts were lies.

It should have bothered her more, seeing how he’d tried to revert her childhood home to its old state, how the mishmash of her memories and photo albums didn’t quite cover all of the work the intervening families had put into it. Instead, what bothered her was the way he seemed to be genuinely trying to learn ethics, how he opened up with videos of his parent’s horrific experiments on him. It bothered her how close his tragic backstory was to those of the people she had somehow come to think of as more than clients or allies, maybe as friends.

“I don’t know,” she said, looking at him. He was begging her for a chance, and was she really the one to decide if he got it? Her hands weren’t exactly clean either. “I… I need to talk to someone about this. She’ll know what to do.”

“Your sister?” he asked, “Trish?”

“Do not say her name,” Jessica warned. “You tried to have her killed, and I can’t be remembering that and giving you a fair hearing at the same time. And no, it’s not Trish, Trish would tell me to knock your head off with one swing. I need someone... nuanced.”

“Say the word, I’ll have them brought in,” he offered, like he was suggesting takeout for dinner.

“No, I… look, if I’m going to be able to make this work, I need some more freedom than you ever gave me before. I need to be able to go for a walk, make a private phone call, and know you’re not going to do something crazy or damaging because I’m not here managing your emotions for you.”

“Of course, anything for you Jessica.”

She left. She made it to Cobalt before collapsing in the gutter and sobbing. She knew the arms that ended up wrapped around her, and she leaned into them.

“Your sister will get jealous if we keep doing this,” said the Black Widow. “She needs to get some of your vulnerability too.”

“Yeah, well I got plenty of that,” Jessica said with a sniff. Then she unloaded what she’d learned, breaking it down into bite sized chunks of emotionally neutral facts. “Kilgrave wasn’t born with powers, he got them because his parents did some fucked up shit to him as a kid. Experiments and what looked like torture. He hasn’t been able to be told no since he was maybe ten, and nobody taught him anything about how to….”

“How to be human?” Natasha filled in. “Yeah, it sucks to figure that out on your own. Not all of us succeed, very few of us become serial rapists.”

“But what if he didn’t know? He has no way of telling what people really want because he makes them want what he wants.”

“He had options, he did not pursue them,” Natasha said clearly. “He could have chosen to speak in questions, not commands. He could have taken any one of a number of basic psychology classes online, where he couldn’t hurt anyone, to learn what he’s missing. For that matter, he could have limited the time he spent among people, or speaking to them when he was among them. Yes, his story may be a tragedy, but the defining trait of tragedy is that the protagonists have made terrible life choices and suffer for them.”

“Yeah.” Jessica nodded, knowing she could trust the censure of the woman who had herself killed for people who did terrible things. If Natasha thought Kilgrave was beyond hope, Jessica could believe it.

“But there are people who haven’t made any bad choices except those that put them in contact with evil. Innocents who just happened to be unlucky.”

“Like Hope.”

“Like Hope. Now, we do our part to get justice for them.”

Jessica nodded, and stood up. They were walking back when Trish ran up.

“Simpson, he… he said he was going to kill him. He was… so strong, I don’t know what he did but he’s going to kill Kilgrave.”

“Hope goes to jail forever if we lose Kilgrave,” Jessica said. Natasha swore viciously in Russian. Jessica set her lips in a tight line. “Time to save an asshole.”

The fight was short, by necessity. Natasha took out a body guard Kilgrave had stationed at the front of the house, and Jessica hip checked Officer Simpson out of the doorway. Then she had to deal with Kilgrave, and find a way to relocate him somewhere they could keep him alive, but contained.

He opened his mouth

She had an idea.

It maybe wasn’t the best solution, but it worked for her.

<^>

“According to Agent Barnes, the unit is hermetically sealed,” Jessica told Matt. He nodded and took a light sniff of the air. Damp concrete and mildew, but none of the sour, brain twisting reek that had pervaded the clothes of Kilgrave victims before.

“Should be safe, I can’t smell him,” Matt told her. The containment unit was a cube of plastic and glass in the center of a bare room with no defining features except old tile. The warehouse was isolated enough that even he had a hard time pinpointing their location through sound. Even if he escaped, Kilgrave would have no idea where he was until he cleared the perimeter. “How’d you get him in here?”

“Um… I may have broken a rule,” she said cautiously. Her heart thumped out of rhythm. “And his jaw.”

“Can’t give orders if you can’t talk,” Matt said, following her reasoning. “Also can’t give testimony if you’re being held captive with a broken jaw, that would be tainted by coercion. And the other option we have for getting evidence to support Hogarth’s case for Hope is to get a record of him using his power, which he can’t do if he’s got a broken jaw.”

“Sorry,” she said defensively, the thick layer of sarcasm only barely hiding her real contrition.

“We’ll make it work, and for now at least he’s not doing damage. I got Jeryn the contact information for a telepathic expert witness, so the trial will be stalled out on the Judge determining validity of evidence. Even in flashy murder cases like the Schlottman trial, nothing moves too quickly. We have time to deal with this.”

“I just don’t know how long we can. Are there people who can handle this sort of thing?” Jessica asked him. The door behind him opened and a very angry woman came in.

“There are. Us,” she announced. “We’ve got this.”

“Ms. Walker, I presume, pleasure to meet you,” Matt said, reaching out a hand. “Daredevil.”

“Oh my God, Jess didn’t mention she knew you.” She took his hand in hers, a warm and firm grip. “Call me Trish. Are you helping Jessica and that hacker? Are you working with the Avengers?”

“It’s a recent acquaintance,” Matt said smoothly. “And one I asked her to keep less public. Spotlights don’t suit me, you understand.”

“Of course,” said Trish, with the breathless excitement of attraction. Matt smiled with one of his less-friendly smiles, the one that said he hoped they could keep this professional. “So, anyway, back to the discussion of what to do with our….”

“Captive, you can call him a captive,” Jessica said. “I was going to suggest calling SHIELD in. They have to have super prisons or something.”

“They did,” Matt said. “It got ransacked during Hydra’s brief rising, it’s not exactly secure anymore. I think they’re working on a new one, but I haven’t heard any details. If you want me to call it in, I will. If we hand the case to SHIELD, Hope gets folded under their jurisdiction and they can put her in witness protection.”

“And if we try to fight it in regular court?” Trish asked, eagerness straining her voice. “Can we win the case publicly, prove Hope’s innocence?”

“Hogarth is a beast in the courtroom,” Matt said bluntly. “She’s gotten guiltier people off with slaps on the wrist, although that would leave the setting of powered law precedent entirely in her hands. Do _you_ feel comfortable with Hogarth determining how the law applies to your sister for the rest of time?”

Trish shook her head and reached to touch Jessica’s shoulder. Jessica didn’t fight it, which Matt chose to see as a positive sign.

“It’s too late to control that. Either Jerri fights it and sets the precedent, or the precedent is set that SHIELD handles people like us, and I’m not happy about that either.” Jessica sighed and sat down in the metal folding chair that provided the only seating in the concrete room. “We can’t let Hope be convicted, that’s all I know.”

“True,” Matt said. “We could always split the difference, give him to SHIELD to contain, and use the leads he gave us to find testimony for Hope. More people should be willing to talk if he’s confirmed locked up.”

Kilgrave woke up and shouted. So his jaw hadn't been broken, just badly bruised. Matt flinched and Jessica turned. The thick glass prevented her from hearing, but not Matt. He was impressed by how… ineffective the words were. They weren’t compelling, just the annoying ranting of a spoiled child finally meeting a consequence. The powers must have been covering for a complete lack of rhetorical skill. Yet, Jessica was reacting strongly to him, to the things she could see that Matt could not. Her fear was palpable, and so was her rage. He could tell she was at war with herself, that she wanted to hurt Kilgrave the ways he’d hurt her, deeply, intimately… permanently.

“Call SHIELD,” she said. “We don’t have time to waste on him. Bigger fish and all that.”

“Of course. Do you want a few minutes to give the ending speech from Ever After? Or challenge him ‘to the pain’?”

“To the what now?”

“Well we’re fixing that,” Matt said pointedly, wishing he could arch a brow under his helmet. “Have fun baiting the bad guy, I’ll call for a containment team.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Translations this time.
> 
> Notes:  
> The shape Skye traces on the sand is the outline of Matt's helmet.
> 
> Katya's power was basically the same as Kilgrave's power, this is why May couldn't lead the case. Phil was, as established, busy elsewhere, and Skye was actually at the point in her grooming for future leadership that taking a case lead was a good idea. That it went so sideways was unexpected.
> 
> Many of my characters, and Marvel's characters before I got them, were deprived of functional lessons on How To Be Human. This in no way excuses horrible, violent, shitty behavior. The difference between characters like Cal, who I plan to redeem, kinda, and characters like Kilgrave, who I will not be redeeming, is awareness. Cal is, on some level, aware he isn't okay, that his actions were not okay. He doesn't entirely grok why, but he knows people he cares about were upset by him and wants to avoid doing it again. Kilgrave is entirely in denial about what happened with Jessica, he fully believes they were in love. He is unhappy about her behavior due to being upset, but it's not that he doesn't want to upset her, it's that he wants her to not ACT upset by him. The onus of action is on her, not on him. He abdicates responsibility for his shitty behavior and is therefore not redeemable. Contrast to Natasha, who even in the first Avengers was trying to balance out the red in her ledger.... She has no sympathy for Kilgrave.
> 
> As clarification, Jessica punched out Kilgrave with more power than finesse. She is worried she broke his jaw, but human jaws are way stronger than people think, and she specifically was not hitting to kill. His jaw is badly bruised, and you can assume he is speaking in a slurred voice due to swelling, but it isn't broken, they just started planning for if it was based on Jess's worry.
> 
> Trish has a Thing for superheroes, and wants to be one. She's got a brain/skill squish on Matt, but Matt just reads it as attraction, so acts accordingly.
> 
> The ending speech from Ever After amounts to "I spare you so you can think about me forever, while I forget about you." To the pain is from Princess Bride, which is Family Required Viewing, and involves slowly cutting parts off someone, leaving the ears so they can hear people be upset by their disfigured form.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "Trust me, I injected myself with gorilla hormones, I know what that looks like.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ordinarily I start each new chapter with a love fest for those who have commented or kudo'd on the previous one, but since this is a reorg, I'd like to thank everyone who commented on the new work (the non-new work... the reorganised work, you know what I meant).
> 
> This one goes to Argentee, Snowecat, Tsita, ValkyriePhoenix, and our first 10 kudo-ers.

Matt really wished he never had to sift through the world’s creepiest home movies, but he had to admit it was nice to have his powers useful for something that didn’t involve current atrocities. Not that old ones were inherently better, just that he knew he didn’t have to get up and rush out to stop them. While Jessica and Trish were sorting and compiling transcripts and print data, he was sifting through background sounds and the hushed conversations held on the wrong side of the microphone to be clearly heard. In the next room, inside the containment unit, Kilgrave was yelling, but at this point it was only vaguely annoying background sound.

“I have to appreciate his dedication to his aesthetic vision,” Matt said, and smiled at Jessica’s stifled growl. “I mean, Kevin is a perfectly fine name, bland, innocuous, easy to hide. But no, he’s a full-on supervillain, he has to have a fancy name like Kilgrave. Kill Grave. It's so on point it's almost funny.”

“It helps sometimes, to have a name that fits,” said a new voice, and Matt perked his head up. Cal and Luke Cage, the first with his angry heartbeat that so reminded Matt of Skye, the second accompanied by the subtle scraping sounds of armored skin. He hadn’t heard that at first, but now that he knew it as Cage, he couldn’t avoid noticing. “I changed my last name to Zabo, of all things.”

“What are you doing here?” Jessica asked. “I thought you didn’t want to ever see my face again.”

“I didn’t,” Luke said. “Still don’t, but Cal here can be… persuasive.”

“Cal, did you threaten Luke?” Matt asked neutrally.

“No. Well, yes, but not with anything that could hurt him. I didn’t know that at the time, of course, and boy was that a shock! Very nice man, very understanding. We had a nice conversation, and I decided that if Daisy, if Skye I mean, if she were here... what would she do? Well, she’d come help you. Nothing they do can hold her, and sooner or later she’ll come back because this is where her family is. If I stay with her family, I’ll see her soon. Besides, it sounded like you could use my expertise.”

Matt hummed low in his throat. “Mr. Cage, what’s your take on what happened?”

“I watched him break and put the pieces in a box… all so he could suggest coming to help you.” Luke shrugged massive shoulders, causing the stale air of the warehouse to swirl. “It wasn’t pretty and we flattened his apartment before he got to the box part, but if he can set aside the pain of loss to do the right thing…. Didn’t have much room to argue.”

“Your friends told us where to find you, I hope that was the right thing. I like that Karen girl, very sharp.” Cal skid off a long coat and rubbed his hands together. “So, how can I help?”

“Jess, do you have that file of medical records?” Matt asked.

“It’s right by you, the blue folder,” Trish said, flipping through her own stack of evidence. Matt reminded himself she didn’t know and nodded at Jessica.

“Would you mind handing it to Cal? He has medical training and has experience in… in the field.”

Trish snorted something low on her breath about lazy men, and Matt pressed down his irritation. Jessica did not.

“You can lay off the attitude, Trish, he has a reason for asking me to do it.”

“His arms don’t work? Or he doesn’t do paperwork? Don’t think I didn’t notice him dodging the boring jobs earlier. Just holing up with tapes we’ve already listened to like he’ll catch something we didn’t. Files aren’t women’s work or whatever-”

“I’m blind,” Matt said loudly, cutting her off mid rant. “And we don’t have a Braille printer here. Trust me, I’d rather be reading than listening to a failing marriage and some crappy rationalizations. By the way, the experiments were to cure a potentially fatal brain disease, and Louise was definitely having an affair, although I don’t think that was related to the superpowers or the sociopathy.”

“What?”

“I don’t blame her, Albert sounds like a piece of work.”

“No, the blind thing… what? But you’re a superhero.”

“Who happens to be blind. My eyes are for shit but my hearing is fantastic, that’s why I grabbed the tapes.”

“How though?” Trish asked again, and Matt felt the truth click into place. She wanted his origin story, because she wanted to know if she could do it too.

“Chemical spill took my sight,” Matt said tightly. “Zero out of ten, would not recommend. The compensation isn’t worth not knowing the color of my sister’s hair.”

“Brown, like good chocolate,” Cal said absentmindedly. “With these little gold bits at the bottom. This man wasn’t trying to cure a degenerative disease. The first ones, yes, but after they unlocked a potential, no, that was pursuit of power. Trust me, I injected myself with gorilla hormones, I know what that looks like.”

“Not the most stellar of recommendations,” Jessica told him, and Matt hid a chuckle. “But it makes sense to me. Anything we could use?”

“Yes, but no. Ah… it’s complicated. Viruses, so nasty to work with, but such a good vector for genetic manipulation. Manipulation in general, based on the results.”

“Can you try that again?” Matt said, using the same tone he did when Thomas tripped on English grammar.

“Well, this Kilgrave fellow, he’s a pathogen, his will power is, hmmmm. They used a virus to put back the things that were missing in his DNA, to fix the thing that was going to leave him braindead. Only his body did something very interesting with that virus, made it a part of him. Spreads out from him like he’s Typhoid Mary, except people don’t get sick, they join him. Temporarily, he makes anyone infected a part of a superorganism, with him acting as the brain. He has control the same way you have control of your fingers or your breathing. It’s fascinating.”

“If it’s a virus, can we cure it?” Jessica asked.

“If we find the original scientists, sure, I don’t see why not.” Cal shrugged. “You said their names were Albert and Louise, right son?”

“Yes, but uh… don’t call me son,” Matt asked, as Jessica whirled into action with her laptop clicking away with fervor.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Cal asked. “Yeah, sorry. Still figuring this out.”

<^>

“Something is very wrong,” Raina said, leaning in towards Gordon. She liked him, he understood the physically debilitating dysmorphia her change caused, in ways even Elder Bensaid didn’t. He also listened to her, but not in the way men used to, when she was pretty. He didn’t underestimate her, and that was new, but also slowed her down sometimes.

“Afterlife is safe,” he said, echoing the words Jiaying had used to shut down her opponent’s apprentice, although he couldn’t have known of that conversation. “No one comes in or goes out except through me. You trust me, don’t you?”

“I do, but I also trust my visions, and something very bad is going to happen.” Raina paced before sitting at her desk, a lovely old thing that she would have clawed for in her old life. Now it reminded her how much debt she owed and set the spines on her neck up. “Maybe already has happened. I have had terrible nightmares about you attacked, about people being cut up and tortured, about armies of steel and flying mountains, and things that just do not make sense together. It worries me, Gordon, what do I do with that, except tell the people I trust?”

“That is all you can do with it, but there is nothing I can do with this aside from sit here in the feeling with you.” He did, sitting beside her. Her desk’s chair was higher than the meditation stool he sat on, leaving his eyeless face slightly below her, looking up like a supplicant.

“It’s just so frustrating!” she growled. “I can’t seem to make them stay still enough to pull out a thread to look at. I can’t navigate it like a map, and the only person who seems to be connected at all is….”

“Is who?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Ah, Skye.” He nodded and she fought down the urge to slap that smug look off his face. “She doesn’t trust you.”

“She’s a smart woman,” Raina said. “The threads that lead to places that seem calmer, she’s in them. In the visions of stopping a threat, she’s there. But if I tell her she needs to run into danger, she’ll…. Well, she might do it anyway, if she thought her family was in danger, but she’d be watching for a trap the whole time. People who know me don’t trust me, not if they’re smart.”

“I trust you.”

“No offence Gordon, but that’s a lie. You’re too smart not to see what I am. I’ve been too honest for you not to know me.”

“I trust you to do what you need to, to survive, and to thrive. I trust you to have intelligent self interest, and act on it,” he said, and as much as that should sting, Raina knew it was true. But also not.

“I don’t always make good choices when I’m deciding what my own interests are,” she admitted. “Simple things yes, I’ve always liked good food, pretty dresses, all that which makes life possible and somewhat enjoyable. But people… I know I need them but I’m terrible at picking which ones and worse at getting them.”

“You don’t seem like a woman who has ever struggled at getting whatever she wanted,” he whispered, and she felt a shiver of desire rush up her spine. Wanting, that was an old emotion, one she knew how to hold and have, she knew all the corners and sharp edges of wanting.  _ Having _ had proved less intuitive, less intriguing, but wanting she knew like a comforting sweater, soft and worn in just right and old. She pushed the wanting away. She didn’t want to be that woman. 

“I get what I want, yes,” Raina said. “Want isn’t need, though. Needs are different, and looking back I see so many times I broke what I needed, gave it up, over something I just wanted and was too selfish to think about if I should have it. I don’t want to do that again, it leads to too much pain.”

“And you need me to do something about your visions, learn why or where they come from.”

“No, that’s not….” Raina closed her eyes and turned away. “Just go, please. I don’t feel well.”

She felt Gordon leave rather than heard him. Like a wall at her back was gone. She hated the part of her that had urged her to manipulate him, to coerce his loyalty to her side, to steal him from the rest of Afterlife and use his power to solidify a base here. It would be easy, well, once she got Jiaying ousted, but that woman appeared to be headed towards moves that would be easy to paint as erratic and risky. That desire for power and respect would only lead to pain, she reminded herself.

The fear of the visions, though….

She closed her eyes to watch the visions of fire and death again, and made a decision.

<^>

Skye looked at Raina. She knew better than to trust what the woman said at face value. She also knew Raina was a better liar than this.

“A city falling from the sky?”

“And robots, metal men,” Raina added. “Armies moving as though they had one mind.”

“Any idea what it means?”

“My visions are almost always literal. I see a thing, it happens. I don’t always see all of it, I might be missing context, but what I see happens. All I can do to be honest is report it without a slant. Just facts.”

“Well that is disturbing on multiple levels.” Skye thought for a moment. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if there is anything you can do, but yours is the only face I keep seeing in all that, the rest are either strangers or variable. You’re the constant in the futures I see and that is both ironic and annoying.” Raina sighed and looked at her hands. “That came out sounding manipulative. It wasn’t meant that way.”

“What do you want?” Skye asked, suddenly having an idea. “If you could do or have or be anything, what would you want?”

“It’s stupid,” Raina said.

“Maybe not,” Skye countered. “Tell me and I’ll consider believing you.”

“I want to be a transitioner. I want to help people decide if they want this or not. I can see what people can become, I could warn them if it would be like me, if they would change on the outside. I could get things ready so they were safe and happy and didn’t learn their gifts through accidents.”

“That’s beautiful,” Skye said, and she meant it. She could see why Raina thought it was a dumb dream, the old Raina would have hated the idea of helping others, unless it was a means to an end. This Raina… Skye like this Raina a lot better. “You want to help people. I can relate. We just have to get back to New York, and I don’t know how to make that happen.”

“I…” Raina paused. “I can’t help what I know, how I think. I don’t act on it, but I know how to move people. You can get permission to leave if you ask your mother in public to go get your son. She can’t say no, because she’s telling the story that you’re a part of a lost line. It protects her from seeming to show favorites, but it means everyone is shocked at how many relatives you have that haven’t been on the rolls. Asking to bring in other Inhumans puts her in an awkward spot.”

Skye winced. “For one, I am really hating that name the more I sit with it. For another, it’s pretty obvious that Thomas isn’t related to me. But… I do know some others. And I’m sort of worried they didn’t get the transitioning we did.”

Raina shrugged, leaving it up to Skye.

The choice seemed obvious, she had to get back to her family. So she carefully planned it, staged the question with the most of the gossips nearby. She even recruited Lincoln, leaning on his fear for the people he hadn’t met but knew were transitioning alone. The two of them had a set up conversation about the importance of transition and learning how to not only use your gifts, but to be a member of a whole new culture and community. When Jiaying arrived to handle the hubbub that was rising around their discussion, Skye posed her question. Her mother gave her a Look that communicated that she saw what Skye had done. Jiaying’s mouth pursed and she was silent for a long moment.

Elder Bensaid emerged from the crowd as Skye worried the plan was not enough.

“If we hold prisoners, if we deny others care that we know is helpful… how are we better than the humans, Jiaying? I think you have done well, your student is ready to go back to the outside world. Should she find others who need us… that is also a testament to your teaching.”

“Very well,” Jiaying said, with a small bow. “Gordon will take you back to New York.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> In canon, Luke's skin is unbreakable while still being flexible because it's actually made up of microscopic nacreous platelets stuck together, if anything tries pull them apart, they snap back together. However, the general use of the body would naturally stretch these cells, which means whenever Luke moves, Matt hears the sound of the cells pulling together. I headcanon it sounds like a very muffled sound of hard surfaces rubbing each other. Like the sound of sticking a hand in the loose-rock bin at a museum gift shop.
> 
> Luke is a very morally motivated hero, a lot like Steve is. He literally cannot justify standing on the sidelines to himself if there's a quite obviously broken psychopath willing to be helpful. He has to be better than that, and it is what makes him a hero, while also being a pretty big Achilles heel.
> 
> Raina is on the path to a redemption arc, but she's hit the point where it's hard to redeem yourself without trust that is being quite rightly withheld. She isn't upset that Skye doesn't trust her, she respects that, she's just irritated that the lack of trust makes it hard to proffer a concrete apology by using her powers for good instead of evil.
> 
> Elder Bensaid yet again proves why I use OCs, since he's quite adept at using Jiayings ego to put her where he needs her without using force. He excels at the gentle art of verbal self defense, and you too can use it, there's a book by Suzette Haden Elgin of the same name that is a great primer if you want to level up that skill.
> 
> Teasers:
> 
> “Tell me you love me, Jessica,” Kilgrave said, the weight of his tone indicating he was focused on getting his answer. A muscle isolation, if Cal was right and she was no more than a finger to him. She could smell the cologne he favored, and a memory from a time he’d told her to be happy bubbling to the surface. A time when her needs had been met without struggle or effort, and all she had to do was be happy when he told her to be.  
> It was almost easy to say.  
> “I love you."


	18. Go Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kilgrave makes his last play. Skye returns home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love Fest! For our three new kudo-ers and for FantasyTLOU and Snowecat for commenting.

Matt fidgeted in the quarantine room of New York’s SHIELD headquarters. The place smelled sterile, but honestly it was better than the vile cloying scent of Kilgrave and his evil. He tried to rest again, but his brain kept replaying the last day.

When the containment team arrived to get Kilgrave, everything went entirely wrong. 

The smell hit him first. The awful fakeness of it, the smell of grape cough syrup and cheap cologne.

Then the taste, a gagging sweetness that made him want to scrape his tongue with sandpaper.

Followed by heartbeats falling into one rhythm, the unifying of bodies into a single being with multiple forms. His mind rebelled at that and he staggered into a corner where he curled into a fetal position and cried, unable to do what his body was trying to do, what Kilgrave had ordered him. He wasn’t in control of himself and his control of himself was all that allowed him to function. Without the pace of his own heart he couldn’t focus on anything and the world became the same confusing, painful mess it had been when he was ten.

<^>

Jessica had expected Kilgrave to try to take out the containment team.

She hadn’t expected him to take out Matt.

The team had arrived in full hazmat gear, and it would have worked, if it weren’t for their refusal to let her go in and silence him. No, the agents had to do it themselves. They had to be in arms reach, had to assume that just because he hadn’t managed to hurt Jessica this time, he couldn’t hurt them. One suit breach, one mask even a millimeter unaligned, meant one agent under control.

One agent wouldn’t have been that bad, but his first order was to tear down the biological hazard shielding, the fragile sheet of plastic meant to keep Jessica and her friends safe.

He ordered Trish to put a bullet in her head and Jessica was busy trying to keep her sister alive, and Matt… Matt was passed out in a corner.

So there was a shootout between the controlled agent and the free ones, each bullet causing a containment breach that turned more to his side. Luke was subverted, and it hurt to watch, but some awful, evil part of Jessica hoped he would understand now. That he wouldn’t blame her anymore, since he knew what it was like. Of course, her hands were full with Trish and she couldn’t exactly defend herself when Kilgrave ordered him after her. Cal stepped up and took on Luke. Jessica noted the dropped syringe distantly as she helped Trish put a loose bullet in her mouth to subvert the order.

Then she was free to do what she should have done first.

“You can end this, you know,” he said, words slurred from the bruise on his jaw from the last time they faced off. “I can control them, but you control me. If you say the word, this ends.”

“So end it,” she said.

“Only if you say you love me. I know you did love me, and you know you do. We _ were  _ happy, Jessica. If you just tell me you love me, we can be happy again.”

Rage flared in her and she saw Matt perking up. He was focused on her, and she figured out why. Kilgrave was controlling everyone else. Kilgrave  _ was _ everyone else, if she had understood Cal correctly. Even those he hadn’t issued commands to.

Everyone except Jessica.

“Happy sounds nice,” she said, and she looked over Kilgrave’s shoulder at Matt, now sitting up with Trish’s help. His sightless eyes, covered by the cowl, drilled into her, the lone person in a room of monster-puppets. “I don’t think I’ve been happy this last year.”

“I can make you happy,” Kilgrave said, stroking her cheek. She wanted to shudder at the truth of that statement, but she needed him closer. “Tell me you love me.”

She looked at her sister, at Matt. At the people who stood by her as she fell apart in slow motion. At the people who made her theirs out of love, who wouldn’t let her self-destruct alone, but who understood her need for agency in her life. Trish, who would happily pay all of Jessica’s bills forever, but settled for new locks on her doors. Matt, who could have been set for life himself, but preferred running a crappy law firm in the Kitchen.

“Tell me you love me, Jessica,” Kilgrave said, the weight of his tone indicating he was focused on getting his answer. A muscle isolation, if Cal was right and she was no more than a finger to him. She could smell the cologne he favored, a memory from a time he’d told her to be happy bubbling to the surface. A time when her needs had been met without struggle or effort, and all she had to do was be happy.

It was almost easy to say.

“I love you,” she said.

And she snapped Kilgrave’s neck.

<^>

Gordon landed them in Matt and Skye’s apartment. The air felt far too still, and the little noises of habitation were muted, other people’s apartments, maybe, but not this one.

“Jarvis?” Sky asked.

“Yes, Agent Barnes-Murdock?”

“Where is everyone?”

The toaster that gave Jarvis a platform here whirred in what she recognized as consternation.

“Young Master Thomas is on an overnight with Lava Lokisdottir and the Harrow Twins at Laura Barton’s farm. The cases being addressed were assessed as potentially too high risk to keep any of the children in the city proper. Additionally, the Tower has a guest who is… annoying. Letting Lava stay in stabbing distance was determined unadvisable.”

“It sounds like you think this guy could use a stabbing.”

“I never said that,” Jarvis said primly. “May I ask who your friend is?”

“This is Gordon. Gordon, this is Jarvis. Gordon is my ride. Where’s Matt?”

“Mr. Murdock is with Miss Jones, in a SHIELD quarantine facility after exposure to Kilgrave. Also in quarantine are a Miss Walker, Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Cage.”

“Oh no, are they all right, is everyone….”

“Kilgrave was eliminated, they simply have to wait for the effects to pass,” Jarvis reassured her. “To be safe, Dr. Simmons has recommended a twenty four hour quarantine, which will release them in approximately nine hours. If I may, they will appreciate seeing you safe and well. Everyone would.”

“Of course. I’ll bring them lunch. First, I want to get some ground transit. No offence, Gordon, but I don’t think you should teleport into a government agency.”

“Of course,” he said. “Just call my name when you need me.”

After he left, Skye took a deep breath. “Jarvis, can you call me a Veles Taxi? I don’t have my phone on me.”

<^>

Tolya looked at the woman next to him. He’d taken the call himself when he learned who needed the taxi. It was starting to hurt less, the feelings he had for Skye, but he still found himself reaching, like a sunflower tracking the sun.

“We looked for you,” he said. “Your brother, Miss Jones… me. Your father… both of them.”

“Both?” Skye said. “Oh you mean Cal and Coulson. Yeah, I assumed you’d be looking. I’m glad to be able to call off the search. I was… someplace for people who….”

He flicked his eyes over at her as they slowed for a red light. She was biting her thumb, worrying at the edge of callous along her nail. He reached over and pulled her hand away, holding it gently.

“Tolya….”

“I know,” he said. “You don’t feel the same way. That’s fine, you have a right to feel how you feel and I wouldn’t find value in a forced relationship anyway. But I feel how I feel and I  _ will _ protect you, even from yourself.” He squeezed her hand then released it to put his hands back on the wheel. “What has you so worried Nebesa?”

“When we were in the Temple, the obelisk released a gas,” she started. “It changed me. It changed Raina. I learned a little more about it where I was and…. Have you or Vladimir had anything weird happen to you? New abilities, any mutations?”

Anatoly snorted. “You mean like my brother getting in touch with emotions? Yes, it was very traumatic for him. He’s at Baba’s learning how to handle his version of the Sight.” She sighed and he realized that wasn’t what she was looking for. “Things change, Nebesa. We’re Russian, we know this. We were willing to die in that temple, even if we didn’t prefer it. Powers aren’t so scary, compared to that. Why question it, when we can learn to embrace it and use it?”

“And yours? If Vladimir has the Sight, that’s two of us in the temple who got clairvoyance.... That’s a lotta futures.”

“He has a _version_ of the Sight,” Tolya corrected. “He sees people’s souls, their emotions… he reads people, which is a little bit funny, considering.”

“You’re dodging the question,” Skye pointed out. “I shake things, Raina sees the future, Vladimir is an empath or something, what did the dice roll of terrigenesis give you?”

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “Baba said it will come when I need it. I trust her. We’re here.”

“Is it weird I’m not ready for this?” she asked.

“You can stay in the car as long as you like,” Tolya said. “But the meter is running. I have a business to run too, you know.”

“Well, shit,” she said. “SHIELD is good for it. Put it on my mission account. Time to go face the music.”

<^>

“Welcome to Nelson and Murdock, how can I hell, Skye, you look awful!” Karen said, getting up from her desk. “What happened, who’s hurt, am I helping bury a body?” 

“Our family is weird,” Skye said, giving her a hug. “I got taken someplace to help with the powers thing. Matt, Jessica, and my… Dad? It’s weird to call him that. Cal. They got exposed to Kilgrave and now they’re in detox at SHIELD. No bodies, Kilgrave’s corpse would be handled as an 084, not as human remains.”

“Oh,” Karen said and decided to examine her disappointment at a lack of grave digging later. “Can we go visit Matt? Or is it way too classified?”

“Seconded on the can-we-see-Matt question,” Foggy said, ducking his head out of his office. “He scheduled himself as out of office until tomorrow, but that was on the ninth and I haven’t had any contact since we packed Thomas up for the Camp Get Outta Dodge Field Trip on Sunday after church. Twenty four hours of no contact is weird for Matt, and we’re creeping up on forty eight.”

“Remember how I was back in March? When I got Kilgraved? Matt’s coming off the same drunk, and he’s doing it in the SHIELD drunk tank, which does not let you call a lawyer.”

“That seems illegal,” Karen said, scrunching her nose.

“Hello, Patriot Act, my old friend,” Foggy sighed. “Can you get us in?”

“Technically, no,” Skye said. “But I’m doing it anyway. We have a taxi waiting, let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Nebesa: Sky or Heaven (Russian)  
> Baba: literally, Grandma, in this case referring to Baba Yaga, a woman with insight and power.
> 
> Notes:  
> About the chapter title: Skye goes home, which is the more obvious reference, but the other is based on slang lifted from Ysabetwordsmith's Terramagne setting, namely "Charlie, go home" which is slang for principled supervillains or grey-capes like Jessica permanently removing villainous threats. In this case, Kilgrave is a Charlie who got told to go home.
> 
> Matt's first paragraph is happening at the same time as Skye's arrival in New York. The rest of Matt and Jessica's sections are the day prior.
> 
> The annoying guest Jarvis mentions is Hank Pym, who helped cause the Ultron mess. He rubbed everyone the wrong way during his stay at the Tower, including Jarvis. More on that can be found in Bodies in Space.
> 
> Vladimir has an ironic powerset because before he met Skye and Matt he was absolutely shit at reading people. That was always Tolya's job, and he had just started figuring out how to do it when they entered the Temple.
> 
> The Patriot Act is an American law intended to be used to fight terrorism. In reality what it does is give the government sweeping powers to abuse civil and human rights as long as they do the paperwork saying it's for anti-terrorism purposes. In the Bodies-verse, a clause of the Patriot Act puts Mutant/Powered crime under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security/SHIELD, both of which tend to operate off the Patriot Act rather than the usual criminal code as a default. I blame the same squidly political powers that kept Ross a General.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the frying pan, into the fires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love Fest! To Snowecat, FantasyTLOU, Tsita, IantoLives, Argentee for comments on Chapter 18 and to our 4 new Kudo-ers.

The quarantine ward was boring. Plain, smooth walls with the texture of tile and the acoustics of cardboard. Plain bench that doubled as seating or sleeping accommodations, covered in a dense foam and a tightly woven cotton. Electric lights with a surprisingly soft sound.

Matt loved it.

His compatriots, though, he could tell they did not.

“When do we get out again?” Jessica said. “I need a shower.”

“Seven hours, forty seven minutes,” Cal responded. “They should have given you a decontamination shower during intake, we don’t know if the virus is still active now that the guiding intelligence is dead.”

“They did the whole ‘scrub with the green soap until the red light turns off’ thing,” Jessica said. “But I laid hands on that _guiding intelligence_ , so I need eleven more showers.”

“Same,” Trish said with a dull thud.

“Walker, stop hitting the walls,” Cage growled. “You have got to keep your cool. There are security cameras everywhere and you do NOT want a warden deciding you’re due for an attitude adjustment.”

“It’s not  _ prison, _ ” she shot back. “Prison has to let you call a lawyer.”

Matt started laughing and when he stopped, he could hear everyone focusing in his direction. The weird synchronicity of Kilgrave’s effect had faded slightly, but the ones who’d been with him then were still the sharpest things to his senses. 

“One, no they don’t. Prison is for people who have been convicted, and they technically only have to let you call a lawyer if it relates to due process or the appeals system. Since prison oversight is made of swiss cheese and dubiously good intentions, that depends on your lawyer insisting to talk to you.” He gave another soft laugh. “Two, you’re  _ right.  _ This isn’t a prison. It’s an inter-governmental investigation and defense organization with a quasi-military bent and a mandate to protect the world from anyone with powers or excessively advanced technology who poses a threat. We’re not protected by the laws you think you know. If they decide we’re threats, we’ll be  _ dealt  _ with.”

“You seem awfully calm for a guy who’s in as much shit as we are,” Cage said softly. Probably too low for any recording devices to pick up.

“I said we aren’t protected  _ by laws _ ,” Matt said carefully, something stirring at the edges of his awareness. “I didn’t say we  _ weren’t _ protected.”

Luke was about to question that, but the door at the end of the hall slammed open and Death walked in.

<^>

“Thanks for calling me,” Bucky said. “I mean, I get why you didn’t earlier, but I’m glad I can help now.”

“You don’t mind us using you like a battering ram?” Karen asked him. Bucky shook his head and gestured to where Skye was reading out chapter and verse to the bureaucrat who’d tried to stop them from going into the quarantine ward.

“I’m just set dressing. She’s the one they oughta be getting out of the way for.”

“Ah, pardon but who are you people?” asked a blonde Bucky only sort of recognized.

“I’m her brother,” Bucky said, jerking a thumb at Skye. “One of them, anyway. This is Karen, she helped patch Skye up back when Kilgrave got her. After she’s sure you’re not gonna die of brain worms or whatever, I was gonna show her FitzSimmons’ lab. That’s Tolya, he’s a friend.”

“Hey Lunknik,” Jones said with a wave. “You get Robyn that check yet?”

“Yes. She tried to stab the man we sent to give it to her.” Tolya laughed. “They have a date next Friday.”

“And this is Foggy,” Bucky said, side stepping the messy interpersonal affairs of the local Russian mob. “He’s….”

“Your lawyer,” Foggy said swiftly. “They may not give you a phone call, but now that I’m in here I can be very annoying on behalf of your human rights. Has anyone here eaten in the last six to eight hours?”

“No airlocks for food trays,” Cal explained, pointing at the doors.

“They’re right here,” Bucky said, palming the panel that opened the transfer area. “You mean nobody has FED you?”

“Jessica’s been digesting her stomach lining since we were eight hours to release,” Matt said. “I can’t hear Cage’s stomach over his skin, but I think he’s about where I am, managing the fasting with low movement. Honestly Cal needs to worry about blood pressure more than blood sugar, and Walker is normal.”

“You all still  _ deserve _ to eat three meals a day,” Bucky said. “We try to keep the meatsuits  _ alive _ , Devil, remember?”

“Yes, Death,” Matt said contritely.

“Good. Now I’m going to go loom at people until I find the dirty rat who decided not to feed you and then I’ll be back with food.”

“I’ll take my rat pie with not so much rat, please,” Matt said. Bucky laughed. If his humor was intact, Matt would be okay.

<^>

Skye walked out of the SHIELD headquarters with a deepening distrust of her employer, and a brand new team. In order to get Gonzales’s cronies to back the fuck off her people, she’d had to retroactively make them all probationary agents. May had helped with the backdating, Trip had gotten the papers filed behind the back of the records officer, Fitz had created the digital paper trail that matched the back dating, and Simmons had quietly stashed the biological data recorded while they were in quarantine in a secure server and then ruthlessly scrubbed the computers in the lab clean of any identifying information. Phil had remained purposefully unaware so he could vouch for all of their alibis without lying.

“Hell of a way to get a promotion,” Luke commented as they piled into a cheap Chinese restaurant.

“ _Nobody_ touches my family and gets away with it,” she growled. 

“This,” Tolya said to Foggy amicably. “This is why, eh?” Foggy nodded and she assumed it was a private conversation so she focused on the others.

“I get why you were so dead set against me being with SHIELD, now, Cal. I thought we cut that out of SHIELD. I thought we’d won, but we didn’t and the same old evil is coming back, and we didn’t even need Nazis to do it apparently.”

“Oh honey, I’m sorry,” Cal said. “I wish I could protect you from disappointments like that. But you’re back now, and that’s all that matters.”

“Uhhh, about that… I thought you said Mom was dead?”

“Oh dear,” Cal said. Jessica elbowed him and passed a plate of General Tso’s down the table.

“Eat first, family crap after,” she ordered. “I’m not drunk enough for your soap opera, Barnes-Murdock.”

“Technically you could always take Johnson,” Cal said, trying and failing to seem casual.

“I’ll consider it for a backup ID,” Skye said. “Another hyphen would just be ridiculous.”

They ate a ridiculous quantity of Chinese food that night. Jessica, Matt, and Luke were responsible for several pounds of chicken, beef, and lo-mien each, but Skye and Trish weren’t far behind them. Cal stuck to rice and egg drop soup, something about coming down off his chemical concoction that upset his stomach. Foggy ducked out when Karen called to let him know she was done at Simmons’ lab and needed a ride. Bucky left shortly after that, but first Jessica grabbed his arm lightly.

“Let Natasha know I found what she was looking for, please,” she said. Walker blinked and Skye got the feeling ‘please’ wasn’t a frequently used word in Jessica’s vocabulary. “I’ll have a file for her if she stops by my office tomorrow. Also, let her know she gets the _ big  _ discount.”

“The big discount?” Bucky asked, raising one brow that would have eliminated any currently existing doubt that he was Natasha’s father.

“The I-got-to-punch-a-Nazi discount,” Jessica clarified. “But she still pays expenses, I have a business to run.”

“Of course,” Bucky said, and shot them all a snappy salute.

“What were you working on for Nat?” Skye asked.

“Confidential,” Jessica shot back. “And you’ll probably see it in the news soon anyway. The file was basically a lit match and a map to a powder keg, there’s no way it won’t make the news.”

<^>

“Well you were right it made the news,” Matt said. Jessica did a few deep breaths and reminded herself he was only an ass when he was scared. She’d only been at their apartment for dinner and catching Skye up on what had happened while she was navel gazing with her psycho mom, not the shitshow currently playing out on the television, but when Matt dropped the bowl of peas and insisted they turn on the news, she hadn’t questioned it. Now there were peas rolling across the kitchen floor and Skye was in panic mode and Jessica didn’t know how to help.

“I can’t get ahold of anyone at the tower to tell me why it’s gone dark,” Skye said, pacing the room. “Jarvis, do you know what’s happening?”

The toaster, which was apparently named Jarvis and sometimes talked, remained silent. Jessica had her doubts about talking toasters in general, but she understood that this radio silence was bad, especially considering the reports of explosions on the upper floors of Avengers Tower. The building was in lockdown, so nobody was getting in or out, and the phones and internet appeared to be disconnected. Given that Avengers Tower always had wifi going, and had since it was Stark Tower, this was a Problem.

“Jessica, call Trish, have her meet us at this address,” Skye said, handing her a scrap of paper with a location in Hell’s Kitchen written on it. “Matt, call Night Nurse and tell her to meet us at the clinic if she can. Then call Foggy and Karen. I’m going to call the Ranskahovs and Cal. Who else… Jones, get Cage too, if he’s willing to come.”

“Why?” Jessica asked. “As in why are we meeting, not why Cage.”

“Because if the Avengers have fallen, this city needs someone to defend it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Swiss Cheese: a type of cheese with large air holes in it, also slang for anything with large gaps/holes.
> 
> Notes:  
> Washing the body has a proven effect on the psyche, including reducing the psychological impact of moral injury (such as Jessica having to kill Killgrave) and violation (such as Trish and Luke being controlled and feeling helpless). Cal doesn't so much have the emotions they're dealing with and sees bathing as a thing one does for hygiene and safety reasons.
> 
> Luke's backstory has him experiencing a regular prison, and he sees all institutionalization through that lens. Matt's backstory makes him aware of the flaws in the legal system such as the rampant disregard of prisoner rights and the fact SHIELD is operating under the sweeping mandates of the Patriot Act. Trish, on the other hand, is a wealthy white woman whose only experience with systemic injustice is the rape culture of show business. Her heart is in the right place, but she looks naive to the people who've seen and experienced the harsher sides of the criminal justice system.
> 
> Stabbings are an accepted form of flirting in the Bratva.
> 
> Matt meditated in the quarantine to slow his metabolism and boost his body's ability to fight the Killgrave virus. Luke has rapid healing in his grab-bag of powers that prevents the worst effects of skipping meals. Trish is a baseline human who is likely uncomfortable not eating for a day but not going to die from it. Cal isn't high burn and of the things putting him at risk, injecting gorilla hormones is higher on the list than starvation. Meanwhile, Jess IS high burn and doesn't have the skills or powers to blunt the fact her body is reacting as if she's on her third day of fasting, not her first.
> 
> Rat pie is a reference to a Monty Python sketch about a cafe where everything has rat in it and someone orders the "rat pie with not so much rat".
> 
> Tolya has identified Foggy as another guy head over heels for Skye. He knows he doesn't have a chance, so he's not jealous since you can't lose what you don't have. It just means he now has someone to share his fanboying.
> 
> The file was the information needed to track down the Sokivia base where Wanda and Pietro are being held. The news on the TV is the external view of the first fight with Ultron, which included a Thor-Iron Man pair up to blast a megaboosted Unibeam bolt directly upward through the roof. It was visible, but nobody had time at the moment to explain anything to the public.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> "Isn't forgiveness God's job, not yours?"  
> "Punishment falls to the Devil, including self punishment. What do you say?" Matt held out a hand. "Wanna do some penance?"


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Defenders... assemble? It's not the smoothest road, but it's one they're walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love Fest! For Argentee, Snowecat, Tsita, FantasyTLOU,IantoLives, hhhellcat, Stormaqua33, and our newest kudo-er.

The Clinic smelled like cinnamon and citrus. It always did, the cleaners they used here relied heavily on naturally antibacterial products and that meant cinnamon and citrus. Enough that it had just started becoming a background scent for Matt.

He stationed himself in the front lobby of the former veterinary center, perched on the counter where a receptionist would have once worked. The clinic didn't have support staff anymore. It had Claire, when she could get time away, and the supplies he knew how to use labeled in braille, and a locked cabinet of Karen's homebrew medicines. Karen was already inside, scrubbing down the OR with Cal, just in case. Foggy had opted to stay visible, calling his network of contacts and keeping a finger on the pulse of the city. Vladimir and Anatoly were in the back, going over maps with Skye in what had been a break room for the vets. Now it was a makeshift war room, although the pensive hum his sister had given it made him think renovations were in its future. 

Jones was on her way. He could hear her footsteps in the alley, a pounding bass reverb that implied a much heavier person. Walker was with her, the scent of expensive perfume already reaching him. He would have to compensate for that.

"Nope, won't work," Skye said as the two entered the clinic. "Walker, go use the decontamination showers, if I can smell your perfume from here, Devil has to be half blinded by it."

"Isn't that joke in poor taste, considering?" Walker asked.

"Firstly, no. I find it hilarious and she knows that," Matt said. "Secondly, try not to talk about any personally identifiable information about your teammates. We're safe here, but it's better not to get in the habit. Thirdly, after you get the overpriced artificial musk off yourself, the locker room outside the OR has a selection of vigilante chic clothes. Pick something out that you can move in. Jones, you can get yours now, you don't need a shower."

"Excuse you?" Trish said. "She pretty clearly does."

"She smells like person and booze. I can cope with person and booze. I really do try not to force my friends to adapt to my needs more than necessary, but if we end up in a fight I need to be able to smell things, which I can't through your perfume." Matt sighed. "Look, maybe I assumed wrong. If you don't want to be on the active part of the team, it'll be fine if you just want to stay here. I don't have to be able to aim in the home base. Next time, be a little less aggressive with the scent, and we'll call it no harm no foul."

Trish growled, but her footsteps headed toward the showers.

"So we're gonna let them get changed and then do debrief?" Skye asked.

"Mmm, wait a little," Matt said. "I'm going to do a perimeter check."

"Be back soon," his sister said, pressing a kiss to his temple. He couldn't feel it past the cowl, but he appreciated it all the same.

Outside, he did the check he promised his sister, then hopped the short iron fence around a pocket park inserted into the gap where a condemned building had been. Fisk's fall had left plenty of the Kitchen half demolished and removed the funds to gentrify it as planned. These parks were one solution the neighborhood had come up with. At night it was empty, save for a small huddle of homeless men around a well controlled barrel fire, and one very large man on the swings. The homeless men waved, and Matt waved back, but focused on Luke.

"Hey, he ain't bothering nobody," one of the men called out. "Leave him be, Devil."

"Why would you assume I'm going to hurt him? Maybe I just wanna talk."

"Black man in a hoodie at night," Luke explained, standing from his swing with a creak of metal relieved of a great weight. "Most people think I'm up to no good, and you have a  _ reputation _ regarding people up to no good."

Matt cocked his head. Somehow he hadn't considered Luke's race, since it hadn't become relevant yet and it wasn't like Matt could tell anything beyond a softly fading southern accent. It did explain some of the more subtle mannerisms, though.

"Well that is both stupid  _ and _ wrong," Matt said. "I came to ask if you wanted to come join a party. We're not sure what's going on up at the big shiny tower, but we don't like the looks of it and we're prepping to defend against whatever might come at us."

"I gotta keep my head down," Luke said. "And… I don't think I'm the hero type, maybe."

"I think you are," Matt said. "You stepped up before, and more than passed what was, in retrospect, an unfair test."

"But I can't stop blaming her for Reva… I know different now, I know what it's like to be controlled like that, but I can't let it go. It's like a bug in my ear pushing at me."

"She blames herself for Reva too," Matt said softly. "Blames herself for more than she should. And I still think she's a hero, whether or not she does. I still think you can be one too."

"Of course she's a hero, she took down Kilgrave," Luke said with an audible eye roll. "Fought through his control and-"

"No," Matt said. "She's the only one he  _ wasn't _ controlling. The eye in the storm. She endured his control, sure. Lived through it and escaped it, but her resistance had been built before that day. Cal's theory is that Reva is what broke the fever. Being forced to kill pushed her system into overdrive, snapped his control and allowed her to build an immunity in the year of freedom she got while he recovered. She still feels like shit for not snapping it sooner, but she had a  _ year _ under that asshole. You don't have anything to feel bad about for five minutes that did nothing worse than give Cal a shiner. But… if you still want redemption…."

"Isn't forgiveness God's job, not yours?"

"Punishment falls to the Devil, including self punishment. What do you say?" Matt held out a hand. "Wanna do some penance?"

<^>

Their team was scraggly, that was for sure. Trish had pictured what it world be like to be a hero, an Avenger or maybe just a loner like Daredevil, so often, but the reality didn't match her fantasies.

There was no slick secret base, no Batcave or Fortress of Solitude. There was an old veterinarian's office with peeling wallpaper and grey linoleum tile. There were no high tech super suits, no matte black armored uniforms or brightly colored domino masks. There were boxes of army surplus pants, long sleeved tee shirts, hoodies, and heavy work gloves. They had them sorted by size, but aside from a prevailing color scheme of black and white, there was nothing uniform about them. The hoodie she picked was cut trim to the body, which meant she could actually fight in it, but it also had a pink cartoon cat face on the back surrounded by pastel yellow flames. As she pulled it on, Luke Cage stepped in. She took a second to admire his physique, but gave him a professional nod. Her sister had a complex past there and Trish knew not to fuck with that if she could help it.

"I can clear out so you can get changed," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed. "But uh, where do they keep the double X L shirts?"

"Two from the left. It goes XS to 4XL. Shirts are on the middle shelf, pants on the bottom, hoodies on top. You have to fish around in the glove bucket for your size, though."

"Fair. Hey, this is weird, right? Like the whole hero team thing. I mean, Devil's been at this a while and his sister sure seems to have a grip on it from the SHIELD angle, and Jess has obviously got the goods, but the rest of us?"

"Speak for yourself," Trish shot back, her adrenaline rising to the challenge she set it. "You have powers. Do you have any idea what I would do for a chance to be able to do a fraction of what Jessica can? What I would give up? They're offering me a chance at my one dream, and I am not throwing it away just because I'm doing it in a hoodie and second hand pants."

She walked out, head high, resolve tightened. She was Patricia Fucking Walker and she had this.

<^>

"Your sister is a little weird," Matt commented to Jessica. "She just went off on Luke about opportunities and second hand clothing when he asked if she thought they had what it took to be heroes."

"Listening in on private conversations is also weird, D'yavol," Vladimir said. "Leave Stoykiy's sestrenka alone."

"Is that a nickname?" Jessica asked, feeling weirdly happy about it. Nicknames were important to the Russians, apparently, and she just got one.

"It means enduring or persistent," Skye said. "And he's right about the privacy issue. We've gone over this before. You can't help hearing it but you can avoid saying anything."

"I can relate," Jessica said to Matt softly. "My job is listening to private conversations. But frankly, we're all fucking weird or we wouldn't be here. Normal people don't do this."

"Good thing we're not normal, huh?" Matt said with that dumb, dopey grin. Jessica rolled her eyes and nodded at where Skye was starting to introduce everyone by call sign and power set, as well as establishing teams.

"Daredevil, advanced hand to hand and expanded senses, you take Rock," she pointed to Jessica, then switched to Luke, "and Hard Place. Rock's strength and mobility will complement yours and Hard Place's durability will be an asset whether you're in combat or rescuing civilians."

"Question," Jessica said. "Are you insane? That's not a team, that's a time bomb. I will drive both of them nuts by the end of the night, and setting us up as a pair with those code names is stupid. He very rightly has reservations about working with me at all."

"Do you want to assign the teams?" Skye asked. "Because I want at least one person with advanced senses per team, which means Daredevil and Enfado are separate teams. Enfado and Hielo are a partnership, and they're both very squishy so I want them on soft jobs, and the heavy hitters on a point team under Daredevil."

"Min-maxing isn't going to work, Quake," Matt said. "We're going to need to spread out, two teams isn't enough."

"And can't we pick our own names?" Luke asked.

Skye sighed. "I could have stayed at SHIELD," she said to herself. "Nobody sasses the team lead at SHIELD."

"That's a lie and you know it," Matt said. "Look, we have some work to do making this team thing functional. But I think we can do it. It's infinitely better than trying to handle things alone. You taught me that. Now come on, I know you can do this. Look at the board in your head. Where are the pieces, what moves do you have?"

Skye took a deep breath, and Jessica saw her shift, something stiffening her spine and pulling a mantle of purpose over her shoulders. It was inspiring, really, even though Jess would rather die than admit it.

"Okay. I see the play. Enfado, you and Devil are our eyes and ears. Devil takes the high roads, Enfado the low. Find us trouble and report it back here. Hielo, you partner your brother as his backup. Jones… what's your name going to be?"

"Not Sticky, that's for sure," Jessica said with a grin at the Russians as they winced at her pronunciation. "Jones works. I don't need a code name, I'm no hero."

"Code names are for the people around us, not for us," Anatoly said softly. "For Robyn and Malcolm and the memory of Reuben."

"Alias, then. I chose that once, I'll choose it again."

"Right. Alias, you're with Devil. Watch his back for me. Luke?"

"Sweet Christmas, I feel dumb. I insisted on my own name and the only thing coming to mind is cheesy comic book stuff like Power Man."

Skye brushed right by that. "Power, you and Walker…"

Trish blushed, and froze. Clearly, despite her teen years of designing super heroine identities for Jess she didn't have one for herself.

"Hellcat," Jessica said, pointing to the picture on her sister's jacket.

"Hellcat," Skye agreed. "You two are trouble shooters. If Devil or Enfado see something they can't fix themselves, you handle it. I'm staying here to run our communications and try to get into the dead zone of the Tower. Cal and Karen are our medical team, they won't be leaving base unless Night Nurse gets off duty and comes to relieve one of them, and you're probably only going to be referring to them as Medic, since if you need them, you're bleeding. Try not to need them; Karen was never a medical doctor and Cal is a mad scientist."

"A very skilled mad scientist, sweetheart," Cal clarified. "I did okay on your friend Trip, didn't I?"

"Trip is still in physiotherapy because you cut open his brachial artery, this isn't the recommendation you think it is." Skye shook her head. "Anyway, try not to get dead, and figure out what the hell is happening in our city."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> OR: Operating Room  
> D'yavol: Devil (Russian)  
> Stoykiy: Enduring (Russian)  
> Sestrenka: Sister (Russian)  
> Enfado: Fire (Spanish)  
> Hielo: Ice (Spanish)
> 
> Notes:  
> The antiseptic wash they use to clean the clinic is made with cinnamon oil, lemon oil, and lime oil, all of which have naturally antibiotic properties without the harsh chemicals that would wreck Matt.
> 
> Trish has a serious case of Hero-Worship happening, and it's led her to have unrealistic expectations for vigilante life, including getting stuck on her own issues and not seeing the issues others have. She wants powers so badly that she literally cannot fathom a powered person feeling less-than. This clashes with Luke's issues about feeling like a failure since his strength couldn't protect his wife.
> 
> Min-maxing is the gaming principal of mixing high and low stats to create a character with a specialization, such as a very physical but dumb character or a magic user with almost no health. Skye used that on the first plan by making a "hard" team and a "soft" team. However, min-maxing had downsides, such as losing the benefits of well-rounded character/team, and in this case did not take the personal entanglements into account. Mixing it up is a better option here.
> 
> Teaser:
> 
> “I dragged you back from death once and I will do it again. Now stand up and fight.”


	21. Ultron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fighting Ultron's attacks lead to some interesting complications.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love Fest! For Argentee, Tsita, FantasyTLOU, IantoLives, Snowecat, hhhellcat, and the four new kudo-ers.
> 
> I finalized the thing I needed to finish so I could write the Ultron arc, now I can focus on writing and posting.

“Quake, cyber attacks at Con Edison,” Matt snapped into his comm. The one bit of high tech equipment they’d managed for their team, and it was actually a gift from the Avengers, old versions of their comms, before the upgrade that gave them Jarvis in every earpiece. Of course, Jarvis was radio silent, so these probably worked better than the ones the Avengers used. “And Constellation, and Unity… it’s hitting power companies.”

“I see it. Nasty little worm…. Fuck you too, asshole!” Skye slammed something on her end of the line, a drawer or a door. “He’s trying to take down the power grid for the city. Who can get to the Ravenswood Generating Station?”

“The what where now?” Luke asked. They were on a party line, since without Jarvis running their comms, it was fastest.

“Over the Queensborough bridge and north a bit, it’s a power plant and our current biggest weakness if this ass has any feet on the ground. I’m fighting him in cyberspace, keeping him from running signals that would blow a substation, but I can’t defend the actual plant. This is like arm wrestling an octopus, fuck!”

“We can get there,” Anatoly said. “And we can take backup.”

“I do not want you starting a gang war, Hielo,” Skye ordered.

“No war. Today we pay our debts.”

<^>

Anatoly smiled as he stepped out of his taxi. There was a fleet of matching Veles cabs in the parking lot of the power station. A lone security guard was shakily holding a walky-talky up in warning.

“Allo,” he said pleasantly to the man. “We are here to help you.”

“I can’t… unauthorized visitors,” the guard stammered.

“Of course,” Anatoly said, sympathetically. “We can stay out here. We were told there may be an attack, and we do not want that to happen, so we are here to… be defenders.”

Suddenly Vladimir bent double in pain.

“Vovochka, what is it?”

“People are in… so much terror. Fear, pain, the attack is here.”

The guard dashed back to his station house, scanning screens in visible horror. “There’s metal men, monsters crawling up out of the coolant tubes.”

“Authorize us,” Anatoly ordered. “No unauthorized visitors, so authorize us.”

“You have to sign in…” Anatoly took the clipboard and handed it to Vladimir. His brother nodded with a grimace and started writing all the names down, dispatching them into Tolya’s care. Together, the Bratva stormed the plant, pairing off to search and find their opponents.

Anatoly found his dance partner by the pipes labeled fuel intake. A half-formed monster that looked like the bones of one of Stark’s creations clothed in flesh of scrap metal flew out of a hallway, flattening Medved in a sick crunch of broken bones and torn meat shredded by the jagged edges of the creature’s metal skin. Anatoly adjusted his grip on the hammer he held and swung at the thing before it could fully disentangle itself from the corpse of the Bratva soldier it had killed.

The metal cladding ripped free easily with strikes from the claw end of the hammer. Anatoly may not have been the fighter Vladimir was, but he could handle the rotting metal zombie that staggered and shambled, slowed as it was by the damage already done by using its body as a weapon.

And the next one, slightly better put together, but with weak points he could hit and gaps he could lever apart. Harder to fight than a flesh man, but not so hard he could not take it down.

And the one after that which looked more like one of those box moving robots in factories. It punched like one too.

The fourth metal abomination staggered out, gouging the walls with its forklift claws, and Anatoly started to worry.

“Nebesa,” he gasped, bracing on the heavy pipe behind him. “Thank you. You have given me more than I deserve. Vtoraya zhizn'.  Ya budu skuchat', proshchay.”

“Do not start talking to me like you plan on dying Anatol’ka.” Her voice held the focus of a sniper, although instead of a rifle in her hands he knew it was a keyboard. “I dragged you back from death once and I will do it again. Now stand up and _ fight. _ ”

He summoned the remains of his strength, determination burning along his veins as he swung the hammer again, a shriek of ripping metal as sparks flew from hammer on iron. The beast collapsed and Anatoly only barely skidded out from under it, his breath coming in a rough hiss as he lay there stunned.

“Heilo, come in. Hielo! Anatoly Gregorovich Ranskahov, you answer me right now!”

“Tysyacha izvineniy, Nebesa. He got the pipe. I can smell the gas… evacuate my men, give the order, they will listen.”

“You are not dying, do you hear me? I refuse to let you die. I am coming over there right now and we will see who wins this fight.” She was crying, and he wished he could wipe away her tears. He could see it, almost, in the haze of escaping natural gas venting from the fuel line. Her face twisted in rage and pain, beautiful in its ferocity as she snapped orders. Her father trying to hold her back from the door, petting her hot-chocolate hair. Her mouth shaping a word, screaming. A man….

What?

<^>

“Gordon!” Skye screamed as Cal tried to hold her back. She knew she couldn’t get to the power plant in time, Vladimir was evacuating the scene, there was nothing she could do, but she couldn’t do nothing.

Gordon arrived in a swirl of blue. He turned and looked at her in shock, a feat with no eyes.

“There’s no time,” she snarled, pulling out of Cal’s grip. “There’s an Inhuman in the Ravenswood power plant, and we have a limited amount of time to save him.”

“I feel him,” Gordon said, and they were gone.

A moment later she rocked on her heels and pulled her shirt over her nose and mouth, hoping to keep some of the fumes away. She spotted Tolya, battered from his fight with the… if the parts added correctly, five or so robots he’d killed before one threw a forklift tine into the fuel line.

First things first, she needed to turn off the gas. She found the frequency of the iron pipework, the vibration of the gas as it passed giving her a flow to stop. She held out a hand and squeezed, twisting the pipe’s crystalline structure. It was harder than the exercises in Afterlife. She felt blood on her lip and pushed harder, her heartbeat syncing to the natural growth of copper, the weathering of steel. The pipe crumpled, and so did she, falling to her knees by Anatoly.

“Tolya, wake up, we have to go,” she said, shaking him. He didn’t respond.

“We’re too late,” Gordon said. “We have to go, before the humans get here.”

“No!” she shouted, grabbing Tolya’s arm. Gordon put his arms under her armpits and hauled her back bodily. She kicked but it was too late, they stood outside the power plant. Vladimir was there, his face ashen. “You bastard, we could have gotten him back! Take me back, we need to get his body. We can revive him, save him.”

“You are too much like your father,” Gordon said. “He felt the same about Jiaying.”

“You know….”

“Jiaying trusts me. She has to. But I see things… differently, and after your father revived her, she wasn’t the same. He left out something, or maybe you just can’t get that back after you die, but I will not watch you make the same mistakes!”

“It is okay,” Vladimir said, putting his hand on Skye’s back. “The extra time you gave us… we used it well. I am not alone without him, and I know he died serving you. He would have liked that.”

“It’s not okay,” Skye sobbed. Her power thrummed under her skin and she desperately needed to shake something down to atoms. It was like needing air underwater, her body muffled and distant to itself as she tried to force herself to find calm so she could survive.

The power plant exploded.

“Did I do that?” she asked faintly.

<^>

Vladimir watched the Devil’s Sister grieve, knowing soon enough he would too, but for now… he had to stay strong. She was breaking, fragile, but not fragile like a flower. Fragile like a pipe bomb. One wrong move and boom.

Although he wasn’t expecting the literal boom.

He also wasn’t expecting the meteoric streak of light to circle Roosevelt Island and resolve into a real live Firebird.

Although in retrospect, the firebird turning into his brother ten feet in the air and dropping Tolya’s naked ass on top of him felt about right.

“What in the fucking fuck was that fuck?” Skye yelped. Then she got ahold of herself, her face going stern as though she hadn’t been sobbing moments before. She swatted Tolya’s shoulder as he tried to arrange himself for privacy. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, do you hear me? And what are we doing about this mess, huh?”

Tolya’s eyes flashed red and blue and golden, and Vladimir watched the flame aura around his brother flare and crackle. The strips of illusionary fire shot out to the all too real fires burning in the guts of the power station. Then they strangled those fires, and the night got much darker and colder.

“We need to go to Afterlife,” said the eyeless man. His aura was a darkened blue, a tornado of lightning that burned black.

“The clinic first,” Skye insisted. “Burning Man here needs clothes.”

“Zhar-ptitsa,” Vladimir corrected. “Firebird.”

“You’ll need to call SHIELD too,” Tolya said, his face distant as his fire turned inward, the aura constricting into a narrow band.

“No,” Gordon said. “No SHIELD.”

“Not wild about them either right now,” Skye admitted, “but we need them to know what we saw here. Vladimir, you have anyone we can let do debrief?”

“Da, we kept Yeruslan clean, he’s new to the States and the student visa is notorious for unreliability if you get in trouble.”

“Should we let him talk to SHIELD then?” Skye asked.

“No reason not to. That boy could charm pants off a nun,” Vladimir said with an eye roll. “I can’t wait until he’s naturalized, he’s going to make a great Avtoritet.”

“Okay,” Skye said with a nod. “Gordon, the Clinic please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Comm: communication devices.  
> Hielo: Ice (Spanish) Anatoly's codename  
> Allo: Hello (Russian)  
> Nebesa: Sky or Heaven, Anatoly's nickname for Skye  
> Vtoraya zhizn': A second life (Russian)  
> Ya budu skuchat': I will miss you (Russian)  
> Proshchay: Goodbye, but like, the most #Dramatic way to say goodbye in Russian.  
> Anatol’ka: colloquial diminutive of Anatoly, more familial and intimate than his normal nickname Tolya.  
> Tysyacha izvineniy: Thousands of my apologies to you. (Very old fashioned and #Dramatic apology usually found in storybooks.)  
> Zhar-ptitsa: Firebird.  
> Avtoritet: the second in command of the Russian mob in a city.
> 
> Notes:  
> New York City's powergrid is notoriously bad about going down. Due to its layout, the whole city can suffer brownouts or full blackouts if a few substations blow. Since the Avengers call NYC home, Ultron is trying to sow chaos to keep them distracted.
> 
> They never actually give the Ranskahovs a patronymic in the show, largely because in the show we're not supposed to care about them after they die. I chose Gregorovich as a generic Bratva patronymic for those who don't/can't have their actual fathers' names involved. Gregori is the head of the entire Bratva, the patriarch.
> 
> The Firebird is a Russian Folkloric Character. It appears as the object of quests, a harbinger of difficult times ahead, and often as a prophet.


End file.
